Properties vs. Performance
Performance specifications are the key to better carpet and backing decisions.

With new technologies and material advancements, today’s facilities professionals have more carpet options than ever before. Making these complex decisions – confident that the carpet will meet a facility’s short- and long-term requirements – requires an improved specification approach: something more than new carpet properties.

Performance specifications are precise laboratory tests that provide measurements related to the long-term performance of carpet – on the floor, in the real world. Carpet brings many benefits to a facility, from aesthetic to functional. Properly understood and implemented, performance specifications are useful tools to help realize the maximum benefits of carpet.

Physical properties measured on new carpet may undergo significant change as the carpet is put into service. The link between the properties of new carpet and the ultimate performance of an installed carpet is often weak or non-existent. Even recognizing this discrepancy, new carpet properties are still accepted specifications, simply out of tradition.

New carpet testing is justified for some properties, such as flammability, but the approach is inadequate when testing is intended to represent performance relative to appearance retention or backing integrity. New carpet properties miss the importance of performance for the life of the product. Any product, carpet included, is only new on its first day of use! To be truly meaningful, testing and specifications must take into account carpet performance over a lifetime of use.

More accurate specifications incorporate performance measurements from standardized tests that use accelerated aging methods to simulate actual use conditions in a compressed time evaluation. For such tests to be reliable, sufficient study must demonstrate the similarity of results between field and laboratory performance. Two established tests are the Roller Caster Chair test and the Appearance Retention test developed by Atlanta-based Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI). Replacing tests of new carpet properties with these two performance tests that work the carpet composite prior to analysis is the first step toward making carpet buying decisions today that will be right for years to come.

The Roller Caster Chair test assesses delamination and edge ravel performance by mimicking a specific traffic condition, simulating the action of a person seated in a rolling caster chair. To make the test as rigorous as possible, unsealed seams are cut in each sample prior to testing. Additionally, each sample is installed over a cushion, which dramatically increases flexing at the seams. The flexing action, coupled with 198-pound weighting and 25,000 cycles of the caster chair, imparts highly accelerated fatiguing of the carpet, seams, and backing. No edge ravel or delamination after 25,000 cycles is the primary criterion evaluated on test samples.

Products that can successfully withstand this grueling test correlate well with outstanding field performance. The foundation of information established by this test has led to continuing use of this performance specification approach, while discontinuing tests of "untrafficked" carpet samples.

In a similar approach, the Appearance Retention test follows a defined accelerated fatigue process developed through studies conducted by CRI’s Performance Standards Committee. Carpet samples undergo accelerated fatiguing using a Hexapod Drum test that simulates the most aggressive parts of a walking action. This sample’s appearance retention is then assessed according to a defined protocol vs. its "new" look.

Combining these tests gives a one-two punch to performance specifications. This duo provides an assessment of the carpet face and backing under conditions that are much more meaningful than new carpet properties. Performance specification works because it is based on tests that relate to carpet performance in the real world; it is the measure and control of successful specifications.

Hot Spots
Within the boundaries of any facility there exists a spectrum of needs to be met by the floorcovering. The following potential problem areas would be managed best by using a new approach on performance specifications:

• High wear – traffic lanes, pivotal traffic areas, such as turns or jogs in corridors; and concentrated traffic zones, such as those guided by ropes or stanchions.
• Wet traffic – freshly cleaned carpet, entry areas, and areas around drinking fountains or sinks.
• Heavy roller traffic – caster chairs, money carts, portable equipment, and motorized carts.
• Extended standing – bank teller positions and sales counters.
• Transitions between different types of floorcoverings.

For more information about Dow’s polyurethane carpet backing products, please call 1-800-847-4212. Reprinted with permission of Buildings, The Facilities Construction and Management Magazine, October 1999.

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