Subjective evaluation of the rug feet feeling comfort

Abstract

Feet feeling is a sense that shows the walking and standing comfort. In this study, a measurement method is capable of characterizing the subjective feet feeling comfort of rugs, was developed and a subjective rating scale was adopted for response measurement. A total of five rug samples; a conventional Persian rug as the base of comparison and four new types of rug named Double-Base Persian (DBP) rug with two sets of warp sheets and the gap in between were produced and subjectively evaluated by 30 subjects. In addition, an objective measurement method for evaluating the compression behavior of rugs utilizing the Shirley universal tensile tester was developed. The results of the comparison showed that, when a gap is introduced in the rug base, the subjective feet feeling comfort and compressibility of rugs were improved. Besides, increasing the gap size i.e. the distance between the two warp sheets effectively improves the subjective feet feeling comfort and compressibility of the rugs. The rug compressibility and initial compression slope of the compression curve were also found to have a strong correlation with subjective feet feeling sensation.