mud pump for textured walls made in china

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The piston is one of the parts that most easily become worn out and experience failure in mud pumps for well drilling. By imitating the body surface morphology of the dung beetle, this paper proposed a new type (BW-160) of mud pump piston that had a dimpled shape in the regular layout on the piston leather cup surface and carried out a performance test on the self-built test rig. Firstly, the influence of different dimple diameters on the service life of the piston was analyzed. Secondly, the analysis of the influence of the dimple central included angle on the service life of the piston under the same dimple area density was obtained. Thirdly, the wear of the new type of piston under the same wear time was analyzed. The experimental results indicated that the service life of the piston with dimples on the surface was longer than that of L-Standard pistons, and the maximum increase in the value of service life was 92.06%. Finally, the Workbench module of the software ANSYS was used to discuss the wear-resisting mechanism of the new type of piston.

The mud pump is the “heart” of the drilling system [1]. It has been found that about 80% of mud pump failures are caused by piston wear. Wear is the primary cause of mud pump piston failure, and improving the wear-resisting performance of the piston-cylinder friction pair has become the key factor to improve the service life of piston.

Most of the researchers mainly improve the service life of piston through structural design, shape selection, and material usage [1, 2]. However, the structure of mud pump piston has been essentially fixed. The service life of piston is improved by increasing piston parts and changing the structures of the pistons. However, the methods have many disadvantages, for example, complicating the entire structure, making piston installation and change difficult, increasing production and processing costs, and so on. All piston leather cup lips use rubber materials, and the material of the root part of the piston leather cup is nylon or fabric; many factors restrict piston service life by changing piston materials [3]. Improving the component wear resistance through surface texturing has been extensively applied in engineering. Under multiple lubricating conditions, Etsion has studied the wear performance of the laser surface texturing of end face seal and reciprocating automotive components [4–6]. Ren et al. have researched the surface functional structure from the biomimetic perspective for many years and pointed out that a nonsmooth surface structure could improve the wear resistance property of a friction pair [7, 8]. Our group has investigated the service life and wear resistance of the striped mud pump piston, and the optimal structure parameters of the bionic strip piston have improved piston service life by 81.5% [9]. Wu et al. have exploited an internal combustion engine piston skirt with a dimpled surface, and the bionic piston has showed a 90% decrease in the average wear mass loss in contrast with the standard piston [10]. Gao et al. have developed bionic drills using bionic nonsmooth theory. Compared with the ordinary drills, the bionic drills have showed a 44% increase in drilling rate and a 74% improvement in service life [11]. The present researches indicate that microstructures, like superficial dimples and stripes, contribute to constituting dynamic pressure to improve the surface load-carrying capacity and the wear resistance of the friction pair [12–21].

In nature, insects have developed the excellent wear-resistant property in the span of billions of years. For instance, the partial body surface of the dung beetle shows an irregularly dimpled textured surface with the excellent wear-resistant property that is conducive to its living environment [7, 8, 22]. The dung beetle, which is constantly active in the soil, shows a body surface dimple structure that offers superior drag reduction. These dimples effectively reduce the contact area between the body surface and the soil. Moreover, the friction force is reduced. Therefore, the dung beetle with the nonsmooth structure provides the inspiration to design the bionic mud pump piston. This paper proposed a new type of piston with dimpled morphology on its surface and conducted a comparative and experimental study of different surface dimpled shapes, thus opening up a new potential to improve the service life of the mud pump piston.

A closed-loop circulatory system was used in the test rig, which was built according to the national standard with specific test requirements. The test rig consisted of triplex single-acting mud pump, mud tank, in-and-out pipeline, reducer valve, flow meter, pressure gauge, and its principle, as shown in Figure 1. Both the pressure and working stroke of the BW-160 mud pump are smaller than those of the large-scale mud pump, but their operating principles, structures, and working processes are identical. Therefore, the test selected a relatively small BW-160 triplex single-acting mud pump piston as a research object, and the test results and conclusion were applicable to large-scale mud pump pistons. The cylinder diameter, working stroke, reciprocating motion velocity of piston, maximum flow quantity, and working pressure of the BW-160 triplex single-acting mud pump were 70 mm, 70 mm, 130 times/min, 160 L/min, and 0.8–1.2 MPa, respectively.

The mud pump used in the test consisted of water, bentonite (meeting the API standard), and quartz sand with a diameter of 0.3–0.5 mm according to actual working conditions. The specific gravity of the prepared mud was 1.306, and its sediment concentration was 2.13%. Whether mud leakage existed at the venthole in the tail of the cylinder liner of the mud pump was taken as the standard of piston failure. Observation was made every other half an hour during the test process. It was judged that the piston in the cylinder failed when mud leaked continuously; its service life was recorded, and then it was replaced with the new test piston and cylinder liner. The BW-160 mud pump is a triplex single-acting mud pump. The wear test of three pistons could be simultaneously conducted.

The mud pump piston used in the test consisted of a steel core, leather cup, pressing plate, and clamp spring. The leather cup consisted of the lip part of polyurethane rubber and the root part of nylon; the outer diameter on the front end of the piston was 73 mm, and the outer diameter of the piston tail was 70 mm, as shown in Figure 2. We proceeded in two parts during the design of the dimpled layout pattern because the piston leather cup consisted of two parts whose materials were different. The dimples at the lip part of the leather cup adopted an isosceles triangle layout pattern, and the dimples at the root part were arranged at the central part of its axial length, as shown in Figure 3(a). Dimple diameter (D, D′), distance (L), depth (h), and central included angle (α) are shown in Figure 3. The dimples on the piston surface were processed by the CNC machining center. Since then, the residual debris inside the dimples was cleaned.

Schematic of dimpled piston: (a) dimpled layout of piston, (b) dimpled array form diagram, (c) cross section view of the piston leather cup, and (d) original picture of dimpled piston.

Table 1 shows that average service lives of L-Standard, L-D1, L-D2, and L-D3 were 54.67 h, 57.17 h, 76.83 h, and 87.83 h, respectively. Therefore, the mud pump pistons with dimples provide longer service life than the L-Standard piston. As the dimple diameter increases, the piston service life was improved, and the largest percentage increase of the service life was 60.65%. The service life of the L-D4 piston was about 81.17 h, which increased by 7.94% compared with that of the L-D2 piston, indicating that the piston with dimples at the leather cup root could improve piston service life.

Figure 4 illustrates the surface wear patterns of pistons with different dimple diameters in the service life test. Figures 4(a) and 4(a′) show wear patterns on the surface of the L-Standard piston. This figure shows that intensive scratches existed in parallel arrangement on the piston leather cup surface, enabling high-pressure mud to move along the scratches from one end of the piston to the other easily, which accelerated the abrasive wear failure with the abrasive particles of the piston. Figures 4(b), 4(b′), 4(c), 4(c′), 4(d), and 4(d′) show the wear patterns of the leather cup surfaces of L-D1, L-D2, and L-D3 pistons, respectively. Figures 4(b), 4(b′), 4(c), 4(c′), 4(d), and 4(d′) show that the scratches on the leather cup surface became shallower and sparser and the surface wear patterns improved more obviously as the dimple diameter increased. If the piston leather cup surface strength was not affected to an extent as the dimple diameter increased, the reduced wear zone near the dimple would become greater and greater, indicating that the existence of dimples changed the lubricating status of the leather cup surface, their influence on nearby dimpled parts was more obvious, and they played active roles in improving the service life of the piston.

Figure 5 displays the wear patterns of the leather cup root parts of the L-D4 and L-D2 test pistons. The wear patterns of the nylon root parts of the L-D4 pistons are fewer than those of the L-D2 pistons, as shown in Figure 5. When the leather cup squeezed out high-pressure mud as driven by the piston steel core, it experienced radial squeezing while experiencing axial wear. Therefore, the area with the most serious wear was the piston leather cup root part, and the friction force at the leather cup root was much greater than that at the other areas. The rapid wear at the root decreased the piston load-carrying capacity and then affected the service life of piston. The dimples at the piston leather cup root could reduce the wear of the piston leather cup root and improve the service life of piston.

Figure 6 shows the surface wear patterns of the L-S1 and L-S2 test pistons. In Figures 6(a) and 6(a′), the scratches on the piston leather cup surface became sparse and shallow in the dimpled area. Figures 6(b) and 6(b′) show that the wear was slight in the area close to the dimples. The farther the scratches were from the dimpled area, the denser and deeper the scratches would be. The L-S1 piston had a small dimple central included angle, which was arranged more closely on the piston surface. The lubricating effects of oil storage in each row of dimples were overlaid very well, which was equivalent to amplifying the effect of each row of dimples in Figure 6(b), making the wear on the whole piston leather cup surface slight, preventing the entry of high-pressure mud into the frictional interface, and lengthening the service life of piston.

Before all pistons have not failure, T1, T2, T3, and L-Standard experienced equal-time wear. This test set the wear time at 30 h. The piston leather cup mass was W0 before the test. After the test, the mass of the piston leather cup was W1. During the test, the wear loss of the piston leather cup was W = W0 − W1. The wear mass percentage of the test piston leather cup was calculated as φ = W/W0. The test results are shown in Table 3.

During the operation of the mud pump piston, the outside surface of the piston leather cup comes in contact with the inner wall of the cylinder liner and simultaneously moves to push the mud. The lip part of the piston leather cup mainly participated in the piston wear and exerted a sealing effect, while the piston root part mainly exerted centralizing and transitional effects. In the mud discharge stroke, the lip part of the piston experienced a “centripetal effect,” and a gap was generated between the lip part and the cylinder liner. The greater the contact pressure between the lip part and cylinder liner of the piston was, the smaller the gap was, and the entry of high-pressure mud into the contact surface between the piston and cylinder liner was more difficult. The piston root easily experienced squeezing under high pressure, and the smaller the equivalent stress caused by the piston root was, the more difficult the squeezing to occur. Hence, the contact pressure at the lip part of the piston and the equivalent stress at the root were analyzed, and they would provide a theoretical basis for the piston wear-resisting mechanism. The ANSYS Workbench module was used to perform a comparative analysis between the contact pressure at the lip part and the equivalent stress at the root of the three kinds of pistons (i.e., L-Standard piston, L-S1 piston, and L-D1 piston). The service life of the L-S1 piston exhibited the best improvement effect, whereas that of the L-D1 piston demonstrated the worst improvement effect. The piston adopted a 1 mm hexahedral grid, and the grid nodes and elements are as shown in Table 4.

The lubricating oil on the mud pump piston surface could reduce the wear of piston and cylinder liner and improve the service life of pistons with the reciprocating movement. The lubricating oil would eventually run off and lose lubricating effect, which would result in piston wear. The finite element fluid dynamics software CFX was used to establish the fluid domain model of the dimpled and L-Standard pistons and analyze the lubricating state on the piston surface. The piston surface streamlines are shown in Figure 10. This figure shows that the lubricating fluid did not experience truncation or backflow phenomenon when passing the surface of the L-Standard piston. When the lubricating fluid flowed through the surface of the dimpled piston, it presented a noncontinuous process. Its flow velocity at the dimpled structure slowed down obviously because it was blocked by the dimpled structure.

Figure 11 shows the piston cross section streamline. This figure shows that the existence of dimples changed the distribution status of the lubricating flow fields on the contact surface between the piston and cylinder liner. The lubricating oil entered the dimpled structure in a large quantity, and the flow velocity slowed down. The dimpled structure on the piston surface enlarged the storage space of the lubricating oil and made it difficult for the lubricating oil inside the dimpled structure to be taken away by the cylinder liner to improve the lubricating conditions of the friction pair interface, reduce the frictional resistance between the piston and cylinder liner, reduce wear, and improve the piston service life.

When the piston moved in the cylinder liner, a small quantity of solid particles in mud entered gap of piston and cylinder liner and participated in abrasion. The dimpled structure on the piston surface could store some abrasive particles (as shown in Figure 6(a′)) during the piston wear process to prevent these particles from scratching the piston and cylinder liner and generating gullies, thus avoiding secondary damage to the piston and cylinder liner and improving the piston service life.

This paper presented a dimpled-shape mud pump piston; that is, the piston leather cup surface had a dimpled array morphology in regular arrangement. The experimental results can provide the basic data for design engineering of the mud pump piston with a long service life. The comparative analyses of service life and wear patterns for dimpled mud pump pistons and L-Standard pistons were conducted. The main results and conclusions were summarized as follows:(1)The service life of the mud pump piston with dimpled morphology on the surface improved in comparison with that of the L-Standard piston, and the service life increase percentages were from 4.57% to 92.06%.(2)The piston service life would increase with the dimple diameter under the same dimpled arrangement pattern, and the maximum increase in the value of service life was 60.65%.(3)The service life of the piston with dimples increased by 7.94% in comparison with that with none.(4)Under the same dimpled arrangement patterns and area densities, the tighter and closer the dimples were arranged on the piston surface, the longer the service life of piston was, and the maximum increase in the value of service life was 92.06%.(5)Under the same wear time, the wear of the dimpled piston slightly decreased in comparison with that of the L-Standard piston, and the minimum value of wear mass percentage was 3.83%.(6)The dimpled shape could not only change the stress state of the piston structure, improve piston wear resistance, and reduce root squeezing, but also increase oil storage space, improve lubricating conditions, and enable the accommodation of some abrasive particles. Furthermore, the dimpled shape was the key factor for the service life improvement of the mud pump piston.

In this article you will find my buying guide: the key point about even the best drywall primer does not need to have a lot of stain-blocking firepower (explained below). It simply seals and preps for the topcoat.

The drywall paper and the drywall compound (“mud”) are both porous surfaces butthey absorb paint at different rates. If you do not equalize them with a primer made for this new wall, you will see the difference and it looks sloppy.

We use roller covers from Purdy and Wooster: wool/poly blend rollers. The wool gives it absorbancy and the polyester gives it longevity. We use this roller all day, day after day for months before it needs replacing. Just keep it clean between uses.

You can always apply drywall compound to a crack, wait for it to dry and re-sand. We normally use  quick-dry spackle or and caulk that are fairly quick to dry and both that don’t shrink.

After the joint compound is all sanded, the first thing to do is to dry brush the dust off the walls (it clings). This brush fits on your paint pole or broomstick.  Then, without stirring up too much dust, gently sweep the floor. You can use a little Shop-Vac with a paper filter, (not your house vac: it will die), then mop the floor. (read about the types of drywall vacuum sanders here),

Having said that, painting brand new walls is the only time I’d consider using a paint and primer in one, which may save you one coat of paint. See the section onPaint and Primer in One below. This is definitely not the best drywall primer, but it will do. If you do, buy quality paint and primer in one: use Kilz, a very good name in the drywall sealer world, and a very good paint and primer in one. I trust Kilz’s product, it is also aprimer with low VOCs. It comes in many colors and sheens.

For you traditional 3-coaters (like me), the first good news is that you don’t have to buy some exotic or expensive primer (assuming you have no mold or stains) for priming drywalls. You don’t need oil-based primer either. The best primer for new drywall are the low-cost primers, as they containonly what is needed: a normal drywall sealer does not need ingredients to seal stains, odors, mold, etc.

If your unpainted drywall has been waiting for a long time, especially in a basement, it may have sprouted some mold or mildew. In this case, you’ll need a little more firepower. If so, you’ll need to read the last section of this post.

Why not just put on 2 coats of paint? One word: Flashing. Because you will see the seams (and screw holes, tape, and corner bead) where the (1) joint compound a.k.a. ‘mud’ meets the (2) paper that is the outer face of the rock. The paper and the drywall compound are different surfaces andthey absorb paint at different rates You could apply 5 coats and still have flashing without a good drywall primer. Now you see that a drywall primer sealer means: it seals the pores so they all absorb alike.

Important first step: clean the room before you paint!After the joint compound is all sanded the first thing to do is to dry brush the dust off the walls (it clings). Then, without stirring up too much dust, gently sweep the floor before painting. You can use a Shop-Vac with a paper filter (not the kind that just has a hollow can for debris unless you like clouds).

Wear some kind of mask. The 6300 is large for most men and the 6200 medium. Then you need the filters. I simplified the very complex world of respirator masks and filters in this post, but the bottom line is that painters normally wear the half-mask you see just above with these filters: a kit with the outer paper covers to extend the long life of the cartridges that keep you safe.

Probably ok for your home use, but I cannot say for sure that with paint and primer in one you will not see the difference in the sections of the wall: joints vs. paper, but feel free to try. It is not the best drywall primer solution, but for walls in good new condition, some paints do promise to equalize the surfaces at the same time they leave your color.

I understand you may be very tempted because you have painted before and you want to cut out a whole coat. But remember that the result will not be the same as a traditional 3-coat job using the best primer for drywall. Here a more complete post on paint and primer in one.

Yes, and we do this in large newly constructed rooms. This means renting or buying a DIY airless sprayer, but it can save loads of time. That Graco is quite a reasonable price, and you can re-sell for half of the cost when you are done! This is especially fast for highly textured walls and ceilings.

No, you probably need a shellac in our first coat product. Most wood will have sap (which will bleed through a simple primer like drywall primer and every coat of paint you put on after that. Also, the wood’s tree rings that absorb at different rates (the dark ring vs the light ring). Why is that bad? The softer ring will expand differently as the primer dries and you will not be left with a smooth surface. We use  BIN alcohol-based primer (liquid quart),a white pigmented shellac, when priming almost all woods. For that, you need rubbing alcohol for clean-up. Good to have the spray can (shown) also.

Especially with drywall, you will find that the ‘mud’ and the paper of the main sections dry at different speeds. You can easily tell when the last of the primer is dry, usually an hour or two. Don’t rush this step! All drywall primers are relatively fast drying.

Especially if you are about to paint with ared, and that includes red-browns, tint your primer gray. Red is notorious due to the colorants that are used to achieve your color, almost all shades of red do not cover well. For some reason a chemist can tell you, the gray primer allows the coverage to maximize.

How can I achieve a “Level 5 Drywall finish”?You may have heard of different levels of finish, including Level 5 drywall (the smoothest) or skim coating, and so on. A great website for all you ever need to know and more is drywall101.com.It’s all well described on youtube: if you can afford it, this is the very best drywall for your home. This goes beyond the best drywall primer for sure.

So if see mold and you have started painting, you must stop seal it as soon as you see it. Try my system of buying a cheap paintbrush, cutting the handle so it fits in a small jar. Pour some of your primer in that jar and use that for your spot priming. The best primer for drywall, in this case, is the BIN we mentioned above. (Read about mold resistant paint).

If the area is very black with growth, you may need a stiff bristle brush to get it loose. Let the area dry before the primer is applied.A dehumidifier may be helpful here. They remove the opportunity for mold to grow.

See pump sprayers on this page. We recommend one thatcan also handle spraying light stains for your deck next time it needs it. Or click on the image for a low-budget one.

As the main place of people’s daily activities, indoor space (its size, shape, colors, material and textures, and so on) has important physical, emotional and health-based implications on people’s behavior and quality of life. Material texture is an integral part of architectural environment perception and quality evaluation, but the effect of material texture on perceptual spaciousness lacks the support of experimental data. This research examined the effects between different wall textures on the observer’s perception of spaciousness in indoor space, the influence of wall texture changes in different room sizes, and how the associational meaning of texture affects the degree of influence of wall texture on the spaciousness of indoor space. By using VR technology and the magnitude estimation (ME) analysis method, the authors found that the effect of wall texture on perceptual spaciousness varies depending on the wall material, and the textural effect is affected by room size. The perception of spaciousness is influenced by the observer’s associational meaning of material texture, and the influence of associational meaning of material texture varies contingent on the room size. In relatively small rooms, the objective aspect (such as hardness, surface reflectivity, texture direction and texture depth) of the wall texture has a significant impact on perceived space. In contrast, the effects of subjective aspects (such as affinity and ecology) become more pronounced in relatively larger rooms. This research makes up for the lack of material texture research in perceptual spaciousness, and provides a new way for the designer to choose materials for the design of a spatial scale.

With the improvement of people’s quality of life, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is concerned not only with the traditional physical parameters (e.g., noise, light and temperature) but also the psychological impact of multisensory elements (e.g., visual settings). Given that the interface of interior space is composed of building materials, the texture of the material is an essential aspect of the building environment perception and quality evaluation. Particularly due to the impact of Covid-19, more people are staying in closed indoor environments much longer, which makes the quality of the indoor environment more potent in affecting people’s mental health and wellbeing. Improving the perception of space scale through the design of material texture would thus yield more comfort and satisfaction.

In the field of architectural design, the vital role of material texture has been recognized for decades. In the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy [1] emphasized the importance of material experience in his design teaching (including basic knowledge of material characteristics, processing technology and tools), and introduced “sensory training”, in which students were trained in experiments with systematically arranged textures. Rasmussen [2] proposed the important role of material texture in the design of a series of concrete design cases for Le Corbusier. Norberg - Schulz [3] considered that “the boundary defines a domain in relation to its surroundings,” while texture offers “knowledge of the general character of the district.” Ashihara [4] and Hesselgren [5] emphasized the role of material texture in architectural design, but failed to mention how to perceive or evaluate the differences in texture. Up to now, theoretical research on the texture of building materials still focuses on the fundamental properties of the texture of materials [6], their composition technology [7] and the application of visual expression [8]. Huang [9] argues that there is still no scientific theory to explain the essential relationship between material texture and space, particularly the relationship between material and scale perception.

In terms of the application of material texture in architectural design, existing theories have done much work in the subjective description of space emotion and atmosphere, such as perceptual performance [10], experience design [11] and application performance [12]. However, these descriptions have not been strongly supported by objective experimental data. As an important part of architectural design, from Ergonomics to Environment–Behavior Studies, the research of space scale perception focuses on the impact of the change of actual space size on people, such as the psychophysical experiment of Komiyama et al. [13] on the sense of a room’s volume and spaciousness. In the research on the influence of building materials on spatial scale perception, designers pay more attention to the visual effect of color [14], but lack the quantitative research on the influence of material texture on spatial scale perception.

The focus on texture in psychology can be attributed to J.J. Gibson’s emphasis on the importance of texture in the perception of the visual world [15]. While Gibson discussed the visual perception of three-dimensional space based on the layout of textured surfaces, he did not mention the influence of texture on a room’s spaciousness [16]. The development of “haptic” research in psychology explains the internal relationship between “visual world” and texture, which transforms the visible material texture into tactile information in consciousness. Numerous studies have confirmed the influence of haptic sensations on the perception of scale, shape, location and distance in space [17,18,19,20]. In previous studies, the author has done experiments on the effect of texture on the perception of material size, and found that the roughness and hardness of texture will affect the perception of the size of the touched material [21]. They then speculated that the texture would also have a particular impact on the perception of spatial scale in three-dimensional space, and confirmed the existence of this phenomenon through experiments [22].

In order to make up for the lack of material texture research in spatial scale perception, this paper aims to indicate how the room’s wall texture influences human spatial scale perception by finding out the elements of texture causing the influences, as well as the principle revealing how it works. The following hypotheses will be verified in this article:(1)

Based on the above hypotheses, two related articles were retrieved on the web of science. Bokharaei et al. [23] assessed the perceived spaciousness and preference for a destination space in relation to six attributes (size, lighting, window size, texture, wall mural and amount of furniture) and the space experienced before it. In the experiment, it has been verified that the texture in different directions (horizontal and vertical) does not affect perceived spaciousness. Simpson et al. [24] examined that the dominant scale of a wallpaper pattern impacts subjective spaciousness judgments, and alters action-based measures of a room’s size. Unlike the previous research object’s one-sided understanding of texture, or being limited to interior decoration materials, the texture of commonly used building materials is taken as the research object in this paper, and comprehensively analyses all elements of texture. Although the experimental environment is virtual indoor space, it will be extended to the research of outdoor building volume and street space in the future, which will play a more guiding role in the space scale design of architectural designers.

For this purpose, a virtual experiment space was built with VR technology, and the method of magnitude estimation (ME) was introduced in the analysis. In Section 2, using various wall materials in a fixed spatial scale, different wall textures were compared on how they affected the observer’s perception of spaciousness in indoor space. In Section 3, the scale of space in the experiment was altered to compare the effects of material on spatial perception on different spatial scales. In Section 4, an Architectural Material Texture Description Scale is introduced to find out the elements of texture that influence the spatial scale perception.

As the standard stimulus, a room with white walls (no texture) was built in VR space, measuring 10 m in width, 10 m in depth and 3 m in height. The wall finish of the standard stimuli was replaced with eight different textures based on a previous study [25] in creating the relative stimuli, as shown in Figure 1. A chair was installed in the VR room to provide realistic cues as to the absolute size of the space.

The participants were asked to wear a VR headset in order to observe the standard stimulus freely for 15 s. They were then asked to examine the relative stimulus for 15 s (see Figure 2). To minimize disturbances in experiments, the luminance in this VR environment was constant, while other people kept quiet in the lab. Because of the influence of visual persistence, in order to avoid the aftereffect from the previous image, a ten-second interval (blank screen) was inserted between stimuli. Participants were asked to score the spaciousness (room size) of the relative stimulus using the ME method. In this method, the participant scores the relative stimulus in comparison with the standard stimulus, which has a value of 100. The participants were only asked to rate the room size during the experiment, and no other information was provided before the experiment to avoid cognitive tendency.

Since the results show a normal distribution for all relative stimuli, the average value of ER (r, s) can be used to characterize the relative influence of wall textures on perceptual spaciousness. Table 1 shows the average value of ER (r, s) for the eight tested wall textures. Results from the Mann–Whitney U test indicate that the difference between the standard stimulus and all the relative stimuli are statistically significant (p < 0.01). Each room finished with a texture was perceived to be significantly smaller than the standard stimulus (no texture). Comparative analysis of the differences in the ER value among the relative stimuli was conducted using the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA test. The results show the room with the wood wall was perceived to be significantly smaller than the rooms with a metal wall (p < 0.05), frosted glass wall (p < 0.05) and linen wall (p < 0.01), but there was no significant difference in the paired comparison of other materials. This suggests that an individual’s perceptual spaciousness of a room can be influenced by its wall texture.

The average ER value of the eight materials are all less than 1, which illustrates that perceptual spaciousness with white walls always seems larger than that with eight other types of material texture for the equal scale, among which the perceptual spaciousness of wood wall is the most narrow, and that of the linen wall is the most spacious.

The results from Experiment 1 suggest that for similarly sized rooms, a textured walled room is perceived as less spacious compared to a room without a wall texture. Furthermore, the impact of wall texture on perceptual spaciousness differs for varying wall materials.

Since wall texture can appear differently for varying observation distances, its effect on the perception of spaciousness could also vary for different room sizes. To examine the effect of room size on the textural effect, the authors conducted an experiment using virtual rooms of six different sizes. Thirty-two (18 male and 14 female) college students aged 17–33 voluntarily participated in this experiment.

In addition to the virtual room used in Experiment 1, five other rooms of varying sizes were created in VR space. The ceiling height for each room was kept at 3 m. The room sizes were determined based on the dimensions of standard function rooms in architecture (see Table 2). Similar to Experiment 1, a white-walled room (no texture) was used as the standard stimulus for each room size. Three textures (materials) were selected as relative stimuli: wood, ceramic tiles and linen (Table 3). The general procedure for Experiment 2 is similar to the methodology in Experiment 1. If the participant participated in both experiments, there should be at least half an hour’s rest to avoid misjudgment due to fatigue.

Table 4 provides a summary of the average value of the ER for the three wall textures. Since the results show normal distribution for all relative stimuli, the average value of ER (r, s) can be used to characterize the relative influence of the wall textures. All of the textures analyzed show statistically significant differences (p < 0.01) from the standard stimulus (no texture), except for the linen wall in the 30 m × 30 m room.

Figure 3 shows the change in average value of ER for the wall textures with increasing room size. For each wall texture, the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA test was applied to examine the differences between rooms at varying dimensions. Statistically significant differences were found in the rooms with wood walls (one case) and with linen walls (three cases), as shown in Table 5.

As shown in Figure 3, the ER value of the room with linen walls linearly increases as the room dimensions increase, and it reaches the value of 1 in the largest room (30 m × 30 m). This means that the effect of wall texture on the observer’s subjective judgment of space diminishes as the room becomes bigger. At a particular room size, the perceptual spaciousness of the textured room would be similar to the room with white walls (no texture). This result can be explained by the relationship between the observation distance and the perceived surface roughness (size of texture elements). For smaller rooms, participants can perceive wall texture clear enough to have textural effect, but for larger rooms, texture tends to dissipate, particularly for linen walls.

For wood walls, the ER value for the mid-range-sized room (10 m × 10 m) is lower compared to the values of smaller and larger rooms. This can be as a result of the relationship between the observation distance and perceived surface roughness (size of texture elements). Ohno et al. [26] suggest that there is an optimal scale range of visual aggregated elements that can be perceived as “texture” in a psychophysical experiment. This means a sense of visual texture pattern becomes more evident in a particular range of observation distance. For wood wall rooms, the textural impression was strongest in the medium-sized room (10 m × 10 m), resulting in the textural effect on spaciousness being most evident.

The results from Experiments 1 and 2 reveal that the textural effect on perceptual spaciousness varies depending on the type of material texture and room size. These variations are mainly caused by the visibility of texture elements and the effectiveness of texture patterns. However, texture perception not only handles a surface’s visual pattern, but also evokes the associational meaning of building materials. Therefore, how the building materials’ associational meaning influences an individual’s perceptual spaciousness should be examined. For Experiment 3, the authors hypothesize that perceptual spaciousness is affected by the observer’s associational meaning for a given material texture. The participants’ ratings for each material texture were used in the Pearson correlation analysis, together with the ER values obtained from Experiments 1 and 2 in verifying the hypothesis.

All the participants from Experiments 1 and 2 were shown each of the virtual rooms used in the previous experiments. They were then asked to rate the scene using 32 semantic scales (bipolar adjective pairs), as summarized in Table 6. In order to quantify the participants’ feelings on a given material texture, a five-level scoring system was used: 1 for extremely left-end adjective, to 5 for extremely right-end adjective.

In a small-sized room (1.8 m × 1.8 m), such as a small kitchen or bathroom, people who identify wood walls as hard or reflective tend to perceive less space, while those who consider linen walls as non-directional tend to perceive more space. In a large living room or small office (6 m × 6 m), people who perceive ceramic tile walls’ texture depth as flat tend to perceive less space. In a classroom or medium-sized meeting room (10 m × 10 m), people who consider wood walls as complex, those who think frosted glass as elastic, those who attribute metal walls as inelastic or crude and those who identify concrete walls as being natural are more inclined to perceive less space.

The results from Experiment 3 indicate that for specific cases, the observer’s view on a given material affects perceptual spaciousness. As discussed in the previous section, the perceptual impact of wall texture varies depending on the room size (observation distance). Similarly, the influence of the associational meaning of material texture is affected by the room size. In larger rooms (18 m × 18 m and 30 m × 30 m), no significant correlation (r < 0.4) between the participants’ semantic scores and wall textures was found. For medium (10 m × 10 m) and small-sized rooms, the authors found several semantic scales to have high correlation with some material textures. Moreover, the objective aspects were found to have substantial influence over relatively smaller rooms, while the subjective aspects (aesthetic evaluation) are influential in relatively larger rooms.

One possible explanation for the results is that the observation distance can have a considerable effect on the sharpness of the observer’s vision. In small rooms, observers acquire information mainly from physical attributes (hardness) and surface properties (reflectivity, texture direction). In mid-sized rooms, longer observation distances can reduce textural details of materials, and therefore the impact of the subjective aspects (naturality, delicacy) responsible for the room’s global impression becomes more substantial. In large rooms, as the wall is too far away, the observer cannot accurately evaluate the texture elements, and the description of texture depends more on the understanding of the wall material in memory, so what has a greater impact on perceptual spaciousness is the inherent impression of the wall material.

In this paper, a virtual space was built by VR technology to test the effect of wall texture on perceptual spaciousness and determine the effect differences between nine wall textures on perceptual spaciousness and its trend under different spatial scales. The internal elements of these phenomena are analyzed using the Architectural Material Textural Semantic Descriptive Scale, which is used to explain the mechanism of the effect of wall texture on perceptual spaciousness. This study provides a new approach for designers to choose materials for their design of spatial scale.

The main highlights of the study are as follows: (1) A room with textured walls is perceived as less spacious than an untextured room of similar size. (2) The effect of wall texture on perceptual spaciousness varies depending on the wall material. (3) Textural effect is affected by room size (observation distance). A fine texture, such as linen walls, reduces textural effect when the observation distance is increased. For rough or clear-pattern textures, such as wood walls, a particular range of observation distance results in distinct textural effects. (4) The perception of spaciousness is influenced by the observer’s associational meaning of material texture. (5) Moreover, the influence of the associational meaning of material texture varies contingent on the room size. In relatively small rooms, the objective aspects of the associational meaning have a significant impact on perceived space, while the effects of subjective aspects (aesthetic evaluation) become more pronounced in relatively large rooms.

Note that the above results have been extracted under VR laboratory situations, and the stimuli used in the experiment had been limited. Nevertheless, as an initial attempt to scientifically understand the textural experience, the present study provides a preliminary reference for various applications of building materials in space design. In our follow-up study, experimental data would be supplemented, and other determinants (such as the color, pattern and cleaning properties of materials, the age and regional cultural difference of participants) would be further analyzed.

The findings of this study can be used as reference for designers when selecting the type of interior materials to use in order to provide a more comfortable and healthier living environment for users. This study would be particularly useful in instances where perceived spaciousness of indoor space is of primary concern. As to whether the effect of material texture on perceptual spaciousness is equally effective outdoors, the researchers will take building monomer and street interface as an example for further research in the future.

We would like to acknowledge the support by Wang Feilong from the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Dalian University of Technology, for providing the equipment used in the experiments.

Conceptualization, C.W., W.L., R.O. and Z.G.; Data curation, C.W. and Z.G.; Formal analysis, C.W. and R.O.; Investigation, C.W.; Methodology, C.W., W.L., R.O. and Z.G.; Resources, W.L.; Supervision, W.L.; Validation, R.O.; Visualization, C.W. and Z.G.; Writing—original draft, C.W.; Writing—review & editing, C.W., W.L. and R.O. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Texturing walls is a time-honored method of adding character to a wall or covering such imperfections as drywall taping inconsistencies—but not everyone loves the ridges and swirls of knock-down or the soft ripples of orange peel. Luckily, if you prefer flat surfaces, it is possible to get rid of an old textured finish, though this tends to be a messy, time-consuming project. Before you even put on your work clothes and pick up a scraper, you should get to know the two methods for how to remove texture from walls depending on whether or not your walls are painted.

If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, we’ve got the guidance to take your walls from textured to totally smooth. Keep reading to find the method for removing wall texture that works for you.

You may have to spray the wall two or three times in order to saturate it sufficiently. Give the wall about 15 minutes of dwell time, then test the texture with a fingertip. When the texture is soft enough for you to rub it off all the way down to the drywall beneath, it’s time to scrape.

Stand on a sturdy step ladder to reach the top and work your way down with a 10-inch drywall taping knife. To remove texture without gouging the drywall, hold the blade approximately 30-degrees to the wall, and scrape in whatever motion feels most comfortable to you, using long slow strokes. If the knife meets resistance, stop; spray that area again and wait until the texture softens sufficiently.

It’s okay if thin smears remain on the wall; you’ll sand them off in the next step. Let the wall dry completely, which could take up to 24 hours, before proceeding.

Excess compound will build up on your knife as you go, so it’s a good idea to hold a taping pan in your other hand and scrape the excess into the pan. Skimming is a learned technique, and you’ll develop the hand movement that works best for you as you go.

Just as in painting, you’ll get better results by not letting one swath of compound dry before you roll the next swath. Drywall compound has a tendency to harden and set if dry bits of compound come into contact with wet compound, so work quickly, in no more than two-foot swaths, to keep from skimming wet compound over already dry areas.Note: Do not dump the excess compound you scrape from the wall back into your bucket of fresh compound. Dispose of it in another bucket and use only fresh compound as you skim.

Dry time will vary depending on the humidity in the room. The second coat is rarely necessary on most textured walls, but if your wall has deep texture, such as valleys and peaks of slap-brush texture, it might take a second coat to cover completely. If applying a second coat, do not sand between coats.

Textured, even excavated interior walls—the sort with charmingly exposed plaster or peeled-back wallpaper—are trending. (Read: Trend Alert: The Excavated Look, 15 Ways.) Not so much the other sort of textured walls: the “orange peel,” popcorn, or faux-stucco walls that might plague your house or rental.

Textured interior walls (think: “orange peel,” popcorn, or swirled patterns) have a practical function, since the texture hides the signs of drywall installation—that is, the taped seams where the sheets of drywall meet—and other imperfections. “It’s cost-saving,” says Barton. “Maybe people actually liked it back in the seventies, but the reason it’s done now is to save money. It’s cheap and fast.”

To many of us, the best wall is the smoothest wall you can get. Here are four ways to turn a stippled surface into a smooth one. These methods will also work with walls that are distressed in other ways (should you tire of the exposed plaster or old-wallpaper look someday).

When drywall is installed, the fasteners and taped seams are skim coated—covered with a thin coat of joint compound, or “mud,” to level the surface in preparation for painting or papering. The same technique gets rid of textured walls. A thin coat of mud is applied over the entire wall surface, allowed to dry, and then sanded smooth. Especially bumpy walls may need more than one coat.

Working from the center of the repair area out toward the original textured area, "feather" the effect by lightening up on the roller pressure as you approach the non-damaged areas.

One of the newest ways to repair textured walls and ceilings is with a gravity-fed, manually powered pressure sprayer. This technique will be most appropriate if you have very large areas of damage or are applying a new orange-peel texture to entire wall surfaces.

This handy tool does not require an air compressor or another power source—just your hand pressure. When you pull back the lever, the chamber sucks in the textured paint, and when you pump the lever, it pushes the paint out through the front plate. By adjusting the front plate and lever, you can control the sprayed textured pattern.

The gun can apply several different wall and ceiling textures, including orange peel, splatter, knockdown, and popcorn. It is not the best tool for texturing very large areas but works well for a few square feet. Each full pressure stroke can cover an area of 6 inches by 3 feet.

Put on eye protection. Cover the floor, as well as any surrounding furniture, with plastic drop cloths. Test the spray pattern by adjusting the front plate and nozzle lever to vary the texture until an acceptable setting is found that matches the look of your walls.

Stand 3 to 4 feet from the wall, and maintain this distance as you spray. Move the gun in a sweeping motion. Pull the handle back as required for the amount of spray, and push the handle completely in to complete the stroke.

Aerosol texture products will be most suitable for fairly small patch areas. Companies such as Homax offer oil-based products, as well as newer water-based aerosol spray texture products in a spray can.

Shake the can to mix the ingredients, as directed by the label. After the can is shaken and warm, test the spray pattern by spraying on a piece of cardboard or plywood. Homax provides different spray straws for various spray patterns and heaviness levels.

Major damage, such as what occurs with large-scale water damage, is really outside the scope of this article, but in the unlikely event that you are trying to recreate an orange-peel texture on an entire wall or several walls, you"ll probably have to use a hopper spray gun and air compressor.

You can typically lease this equipment from a rental store. You put a thinned mixture of drywall joint compound (e.g., 30 pounds of a compound to 5 pints of water) mixed to a consistency like runny batter into the hopper, then run the gun half-open through a small nozzle at about 25-30 psi. This setting usually gives you splatter the right size for an orange-peel texture.

If you used an oil-based product, the best way to remove a small area is by sanding. A handheld block sander will give you a fairly uniform removal. Use 150-grit sandpaper to get the high points then move to 220-grit to get it fairly smooth. Make sure not to apply too much pressure, or you may accidentally sand down into the drywall paper layer. Once the oil-based area texture is removed, prime and spray with a latex orange-peel texture spray.

Not only does orange-peel wall texture add some visual interest to walls, but it also helps to hide dirt and imperfections. And it’s durable when done right. This is why it’s popular in rentals and commercial spaces.