On Jun 24, 4:38*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
We had a party for our daughter yesterday. The high heels of one her
friends did serious damage to our 3-week-old engineered wood floors. Is
this normal? Seems like high heels should be taken into account. Some
areas look like they took a BB gun to it.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

Kurt-

That is truly a bummer.

The problem is..... high heels are the bane of wood flooring.

As Rico posted the force of a person's weight applied over tiny area
of a high heel tip generates very high contact stress.

My mom (may she rest in peace) was a high heel wearer nearly her
entire life.
She would come home from work & cook dinner in high heels on the solid
oak floor.
There were many small about 3/8" diameter but very shallow indents.

Here is a link to cross grain compression of various wood species...
these numbers are at the "elastic limit", meaning stresses above this
will generate permanent impressions.

http://chestofbooks.com/home-improve...-Strength.html

The cross grain compressive elastic limit stress for oak is about 850
psi

I measured the diameter of various heel tips.

..625 x .625 (round) not a high heel .31 sq in
..375 x .625 (oval) semi high heel .24 sq in

"high" high heel (best guess at a worst case tip size)
..375 x .375 (round) .11 sq in


put a 100 pound girl on a single heel tip (don't even consider dynamic
effect due to dancing) and you get these contact stress

~325 psi
~420 psi
~900 psi

so the smaller diameter heel tips are getting close to the "damage
limit".

Put a heavier girl in the shoes or
someone on poorly maintained heel (as Rico pointed out) and you're
over the limit.

Going down to the diameter of a BB (~.18) and now you're at 3,600
psi ..........
even a 1/4" diameter give you 2,000 psi

I don't know the compressive capacity of engineered wood floor product
but I assume its in the same ball park.