A Study on Adhesive Compaction by Shear Vibration for Robotic Floor Tiling

Tile installation requires redistributing adhesive beneath the tile to achieve a level and aligned surface. In single-sided tile adhesive application, full adhesive coverage of the tile’s backside is essential for sufficient bonding strength and long-term durability. This process typically demands high pressure to compress the adhesive until it wets the tile underside completely. However, for robotic fabrication, many robotic arms are limited in the pressing force they can achieve, leading to their inability to spread the adhesive spread. In manual installation, tilers often apply a shearing vibration to reduce the adhesive’s viscosity and enhance redistribution, yet, existing literature in robotic tiling have not examined the effect of shear vibration in detail. This study presents an experimental investigation to understand the benefits of introducing shearing vibration to assist tile installation. We present a robotic test platform consisting of a three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) positioning mechanism, a shear-vibration actuator, and four compression force sensors. Results show enhanced adhesive redistribution and produce more uniform coverage when vibration is introduced. Using a 3 mm amplitude vibration at 200 Hz, full adhesive contact was achieved with only 15 kgf of pressure. Our data quantifies the effect of vibration speed for use with smaller and lighter robots that are limited in actuation strength. © 2026 and published by the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong.