‘Without an anti-slip mat, it's like walking barefoot on ice’
Roads are only as smooth as glass in winter. Loading areas, on the other hand, are dangerous slippery surfaces all year round. What clever tyres are to the vehicle, anti-slip mats are to the loading area. This should be common knowledge. But carriers, transport companies and shippers sometimes overlook this detail. If you are unlucky, a police check comes unexpectedly and the vehicle comes to a standstill - a wake-up call.
by Werner Glasen, Head of Product Management, Sales and Marketing at SpanSet Germany
Of course you can also secure loads without anti-slip mats, they are not mandatory. But: just as you shouldn't walk barefoot on ice, you shouldn't place freight on the loading area ‘without anything underneath’. This is because it is also slippery - all year round. What's more, if you don't use anti-slip mats, you're making your work unnecessarily difficult.
Anti-slip mats facilitate load securing
Here is an example from the area of tie-down lashing (calculated in accordance with DIN EN 12195- 1: 2011
Let's look at a 2000 kg piece of cargo that is not form-fit and without an anti-slip mat (µ = 0.2) on the ‘bare’ loading surface. With a lashing angle of 85°, a whopping 11 lashing straps with an STF of 350 daN are required in this case to properly secure the load against slipping.
If the lashing angle is only 45°, as many as 15 lashing straps are required, without which road transport may not start. Quite apart from the fact that a lot of equipment is needed in both cases: It takes an enormous amount of time to position all the lashing straps correctly before departure and to generate a pre-tensioning force of 350 daN x times with the ratchet.
Two lashing straps instead of 11
This is where the certified anti-slip mat comes into play. They are available in ‘solid rubber’ and ‘granulate’ versions, among others. Using this type of anti-slip mat ensures significantly better grip on the loading area. Depending on the temperature, humidity and other factors, certified anti-slip mats achieve a coefficient of friction of 0.6 µ and sometimes even higher. In our example with the 2000 kg load, two lashing straps with an STF of 350 daN at a lashing angle of 85° are sufficient. If necessary, visualise the lashing angle graphically. The material, time and ultimately cost savings are considerable!
Different materials, different designs
For this reason, experts recommend the use of anti-slip mats made of rubber, plastic or other coated base materials such as solid cardboard, fabric or felt. VDI Guideline 2700 Sheet 15 (‘Load securing on road vehicles - Anti-slip materials’) describes which designs are suitable. Sometimes it is advisable to lay anti-slip mats permanently. Spray coatings (e.g. on wooden beams) and pads also have a right to exist.
Never use anti-slip mats without additional measures
But be careful: the anti-slip base alone does not fulfil the requirements for compliant load securing. In the aforementioned VDI guideline, we also read - and this should not go unmentioned in a plea in favour of anti-slip mats - that ‘additional measures (e.g. additional frictional connection or positive locking) must always be taken to secure the load in order to maintain contact between the friction partners (load/loading surface) in every driving situation’.
We would like to emphasise that anti-slip mats are neither mandatory nor sufficient on their own. But they do help immensely with proper load securing.
Werner Glasen puts it like this: ‘To paraphrase the famous Loriot quote: load securing without anti-slip mats is possible, but extremely difficult and also extremely costly.’ ©SpanSet Germany
