In workshops with high-frequency AGVs and warehouses where forklifts move back and forth constantly, a floor's wear resistance is put under serious strain — it directly affects service life and maintenance cost. That's exactly why "super wear-resistant" has become a popular label in the materials market. But what does it actually mean? This article walks through the fundamentals of wear resistance and shows how "super wear-resistant" can actually be determined.

The Basics

What Is Wear Resistance?

Wear at the molecular level – chemical bonds, molecular sliding and van der Waals forces

Wear resistance is a material's ability to withstand mechanical wear. When a surface comes into contact with and moves against another object — through friction, scratching or impact — material is gradually lost or deformation occurs, eventually resulting in visible damage.

Macro level: Wear shows up directly as material loss and surface deformation.

Atomic level: Atoms can be "captured" from one surface by the opposing surface on contact.

Molecular level: Polymer failure means the chemical bonds within molecules and the van der Waals forces/hydrogen bonds between molecules break down.

A material with high wear resistance keeps its surface shape and performance stable over long-term use, without easily wearing down or breaking apart.

Animated explainer: what actually determines wear resistance at the molecular level.

Standard vs. Marketing

"Super Wear-Resistant" – Marketing Meets Science

To highlight their products' wear resistance, many manufacturers have started using the label "super wear-resistant" — but for most, it's a marketing term with no set definition. There's no national standard that formally defines "super wear-resistant" material. So how do you determine whether a material actually lives up to its claims? By looking directly at the measured wear resistance:

Surface wear appearance: Whether the surface shows exposed substrate, cracking or flaking after wear, and where the durability limit of the coating or construction lies.
Extremely light or unloaded conditions – Taber Abrasion Test (GB/T 22374-2018): The requirement of 0.05 g (750 g/500 revolutions) only applies to soft flooring under extremely light or unloaded conditions.
Heavy load – BCA Abrasion Test (EN 13892-4): A method widely used in Europe for field measurement, particularly suited to simulating wear on flooring in heavy industrial environments.

Under heavy load and high-frequency wear — AGV traffic, for example — neither GB/T 22374-2018 nor the common standard methods are sufficient. The BCA method uses a wear-test machine where a steel wheel rolls in a circular path around a test disc, simulating the wear steel wheels cause in curves and turns — one of the most severe types of wear a floor experiences in practice. To answer customer questions about UQESH's own flooring systems, we therefore developed a more direct, real-world comparison test (similar to the BCA method, but under even higher load) — and let the results speak for themselves.

Watch the Test

The Wear Test in Practice

Real test surface after repeated rolling load — wheel tracks are clearly visible across the different test fields.

Our Own Test

80 Days, 32,000 Passes

Four common floor coatings were tested side by side under identical conditions.

An electric forklift used as test equipment for the wear test

Test subjects: common acrylic-, epoxy- and polyurethane-based wear-resistant topcoats on the market.

Test period: 80 days, 32,000 passes.

Test equipment: electric forklift – 0.7 ton unladen weight, 2.3 ton load, 1.5 min/lap, 10 hours of operation per day, 400 passes per day.

Layer structure: base and intermediate layers of UQESH's waterborne polyurethane mortar and self-leveling layer, with four different topcoats applied on top: acrylic, epoxy, one-component polyurethane and two-component polyurethane (UQESH).

Topcoat	Wear Pattern After Test	Wear Resistance
Acrylic-based	Heavily worn, the surface layer in the trafficked area essentially worn through, overall floor damaged	Worst – cannot preserve floor integrity
Epoxy-based	Heavy wear with clear, deep tracks, parts of the surface worn through exposing the layer beneath	Poor – unsatisfactory wear resistance
One-component polyurethane	Clear wear tracks, parts of the surface worn through	Moderate – difficult to maintain performance over time
Two-component polyurethane (UQESH)	Only dark grey wear marks remain after testing, not worn through	Best – effectively preserves surface integrity and function

Ranked by wear resistance: two-component polyurethane (UQESH) > one-component (moisture-cured) polyurethane ≫ epoxy, acrylic.

UQESH TAP 750 weather-resistant waterborne polyurethane topcoat after the wear test

UQESH TAP 750 After Testing

After 32,000 passes, only dark grey wear marks are visible on the surface — the coating is not worn through and retains its density and protective function.

Additional Data

Flexural Strength Over Time

After 24 hours and 7 days, UQESH's waterborne polyurethane system exceeds both the requirement level and common repair mortars.

Time	GB/T 22374-2018 (JJ type) flexural strength requirement	Common repair mortar	UQESH waterborne polyurethane system
24H	≥ 5 MPa	~5 MPa	18 MPa
7D	≥ 10 MPa	~5 MPa	18 MPa

Whether a floor is truly wear-resistant can't be determined by name alone — it requires scientific grounding and test data. Backed by well-founded chemistry and data, UQESH's waterborne polyurethane coating has a real wear-resistance advantage over common "super wear-resistant" epoxy and acrylic materials.

In the Real World

Proven in the Field, Year After Year

Teway Food – AGV robots in high-frequency operation on UQESH flooring

Teway Food – High-Frequency AGV Traffic

At food companies like Teway Food, UQESH's waterborne polyurethane coating keeps the floor in good condition year after year, despite continuous high-tempo AGV traffic.

Haitian – Heavy Load

In heavy-load environments, such as Haitian's large-scale facility, UQESH's material withstands pressure and repeated traffic from heavy equipment while retaining its wear resistance for stable, long-term use.

What Does "Super Wear-Resistant" Flooring Actually Mean?