I conducted due diligence at your Web site, but found no reference to a delicate but vital question that has been nagging me for some time now. Can you please tell me whether it is more sanitary to aim directly for the back wall of a urinal or to splash into the water? Which minimizes splashback? Do urinal designers consider this in the same way that, say, auto designers use wind tunnels to minimize air resistance? This question takes on heightened urgency when I visit guests’ homes and the issue of auditory embarrassment is considered.
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Men Are Pigs, Part One, which surely few have forgotten, dealt with the question of why toilet seats in public rest rooms are U-shaped. Answer: To eliminate the part that men are most likely to scuzz up. Urinal design is intended to address a similar problem. Some men, of whom your fastidious columnist is one, can use a urinal without soaking themselves and the floor in the process. However, judging from the swamplike condition of the average men’s room, the percentage of men who have mastered this useful art is not significant. The principal difficulty, which will surprise few women, is improper aim.
For a view from the trenches, as it were, I spoke to Gary Uhl, director of design for American Standard, one of the leading makers of toilet fixtures. Gary told me that considerable thought has gone into the design of the modern urinal in order to eliminate splashback. The rear wall of the typical urinal is parabolic in cross section when viewed from above, and the porcelain finish is conducive to laminar flow. The principles of fluid dynamics tell us that a fluid striking a smooth surface at an oblique angle will tend to flow along that surface. Assuming the source of the fluid is near the focal point of the parabola–and modesty makes it unlikely he’ll stray too far–the fluid will run straight down the urinal wall with little or no splashing.
(3) Give men something higher to shoot for. Now we’re talking. Gary tells me that management at the international terminal of New York’s Kennedy airport specified that the image of a black fly be printed on the porcelain at the center of the back wall of every urinal. When given a target, it seems, men instinctively aim at it. The fly was originally introduced at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, where it supposedly reduced spillage by 80 percent. Side benefit: Folks who’ve seen these urinals never again utter the cliche “I wish I were a fly on the wall.”
