• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.129-133
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• 2023

Background: With the rise in global mobility, aircraft indoor air quality has become a significant public health concern. This study focuses on the health implications of increased travel and bleed air-air drawn from aircraft engines for cabin pressurization and air conditioning. Objectives: This research aims to review the potential health effects related to exposure to aircraft cabin air, particularly the effects of bleed air during fume events. Methods: We conducted a literature review of existing studies on aircraft cabin air quality. We focused on both the immediate and health effects of exposure to cabin air, particularly those related to bleed air contaminants. Results: The review found a possible link between exposure to aircraft cabin air and certain health issues, especially in cabin crew and frequent flyers. There was an increased incidence of respiratory and neurological symptoms related to bleed air exposure. However, the cumulative health effects of frequent air travel remain inconclusive due to limited data. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for improving air quality in aircraft to protect public health. While further research is needed to understand the cumulative effects of frequent air travel, the reduction of exposure to bleed air contaminants should be a priority. These findings underline the need for regulatory changes and technological improvements in aircraft cabin air quality.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.443-458
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• 2024

The construction industry, one of the biggest producers of greenhouse emissions, is under a lot of pressure as a result of growing worries about how climate change may affect local communities. Geopolymer concrete (GPC) has emerged as a feasible choice for construction materials as a result of the environmental issues connected to the manufacture of cement. The findings of this study contribute to the development of machine learning methods for estimating the properties of eco-friendly concrete, which might be used in lieu of traditional concrete to reduce CO₂ emissions in the building industry. In the present work, the compressive strength (f_c) of GPC is calculated using random forests regression (RFR) methodology where natural zeolite (NZ) and silica fume (SF) replace ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS). From the literature, a thorough set of experimental experiments on GPC samples were compiled, totaling 254 data rows. The considered RFR integrated with artificial hummingbird optimization (AHA), black widow optimization algorithm (BWOA), and chimp optimization algorithm (ChOA), abbreviated as ARFR, BRFR, and CRFR. The outcomes obtained for RFR models demonstrated satisfactory performance across all evaluation metrics in the prediction procedure. For R² metric, the CRFR model gained 0.9988 and 0.9981 in the train and test data set higher than those for BRFR (0.9982 and 0.9969), followed by ARFR (0.9971 and 0.9956). Some other error and distribution metrics depicted a roughly 50% improvement for CRFR respect to ARFR.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.93-103
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• 2000

The purpose of this case study is to report a case of lung cancer with exposure to welding fumes of welders in Korea and to demonstrate the causal relationship with exposure to welding fumes, especially with nickel and hexavalent chromium. The case is 47 years old, and had been engaged in welding, gas cutting, grinding and gousing on mild, stainless steel and nickel steel for 11 years from 1982 to 1993, and have been engaged in cleaning steel rollers with a cleaning oil in the same work shop since 1993. The level of welding fume exceeded the occupational exposure limit of $5mg/m^3$ established by the Korean Ministry of Labor and American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH). Especially, detectable hexavalent chromium and nickel was generated during welding, gousing on stainless and nickel steel. However, there was no ventilation systems(local and dilution) and no personal protection. There is several evidence that the past (1983-1993) exposure would be higher than the present. In conclusion, the lung case could be associated with his task including welding, gousing, and this association could be attributed to carcinogenic potential of the nickel and chromium in the fume.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.457-465
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• 2013

This study discussed the influence of mixtures and curing conditions on the development of strength and microstructure of RPC using ternary pozzolanic materials. Through pilot experiment, various RPC was manufactured by adding single or mixed ternary pozzolanic materials such as silica fume, blast furnace slag and fly ash by mass of cement, up to 0~65%, and cured by using 4 types of method which are water and air-dried curing at $20^{\circ}C$, steam and hot-water curing at $90^{\circ}C$. The results show that the use of ternary pozzolanic materials and a suitable curing method are an effective method for improving development of strength and microstructure of RPC. The unit volume of cement was greatly reduced in RPC with ternary pozzolanic materials and unlike hydration reaction in cement, the pozzolanic reaction noticeably contributes to a reduction in hydration heat and dry shrinkage. A considerable improvement was found in the flexural strength of RPC using ternary pozzolanic materials, and then the utilization of a structural member subjected to bending was expected. The X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis and Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM) revealed that the microstructure of RPC was denser by using the ternary pozzolanic materials than the original RPC containing silica fume only.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.593-601
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated the methods of improving the capturing ability of acid fume by assessing the performance of slot-type external hood installed on both sides of an open surface tank for acid washing process. A field survey and the results of computational fluid dynamics revealed that capturing performance of existing hoods is very poor. To solve such problem, 'push-pull hood' that pushes from one side of an open surface tank and pulls on the other side was suggested. The initial prediction was that if a push-pull hood is used, the acid fume of an acid-washing tank surface could be moved towards the hood through the push flow. However, this study has confirmed that if the push flow velocity becomes too high, it could spread to other areas due to flooding from the hood. Therefore, if the push air supply is maintained at around 25 $m^3/min$(push 10 m/s), proper control flow is formed on the surface of a tank and acid fume that stayed at the upper part of the tank is smoothly captured toward the hood, significantly enhancing the capturing performance.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.92-98
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• 2019

In this study, we developed a repair material incorporating PVA powder resin and nylon fiber into cemented carbide used in the existing field to improve adhesion performance and water tightness with existing concrete. Flexural behavior evaluation was performed. The main experimental variables were PVA powder resin, nylon fiber mixing rate and damage type, and performance tests were conducted to evaluate compressive strength and flexural behavior after repairing materials. It was found that all formulations fully satisfied the required performance of the repair material. The flexural strength test results of the repaired tube specimens showed that the performance of the repaired materials was maximized when the nylon fiber was added and the PVA powder was added in an appropriate amount. The flexural behavior of all the specimens showed the flexural behavior of the structural members with a low rebar ratio, suggesting that the amount of iron wire in the domestic fume pipe was somewhat insufficient. That is, it was confirmed that the amount of reinforcement of the steel wire was somewhat small, so that the concrete was cracked before the behavior of the concrete and the steel wire reached the extreme state, and the concrete was immediately destroyed beyond the tensile strength of the concrete.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.25-32
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• 2010

High performance shotcrete has been recently researched partly as a result of high consensus on high strength and durability. However, they are very initial step compared from the advanced countries. For instance, they has been mainly on high strength or durability without any consideration on pumpability and shootability which are very crucial on workability. The purpose of this dissertation was to make a high performance wet-mix shotcrete (high workability) which would solve the general problems of wet-mix process in Korea. For this, the main experimental variables were selected to be silica fume(0.0, 4.5, 9%), air entrained agent(0.0, 0.005%). Rheology with IBB rheometer was measured for evaluating pumpability and shootability as well as pump pressure, rebound rate and build-up thickness. The conclusions from a series of experiments were as follow: The results of analyzing the effects of AE agent and silica fume on rheology indicated that AE agent reduced both of flow resistance(G) and torque viscosity(H) and silica fume increased flow resistance (G) and reduced torque viscosity(H). An increase in the value of torque viscosity(H) produces an increase in the requried pumping pressure. These result indicated that the reduction of torque would work better at improving pumpability. And an increase flow resistance(G) improved shootability(increase build-up thickness and reduce rebound).

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.64-71
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• 2015

Silica fume is generally adopted as admixture for Ultra High Strength Concrete (UHSC) owing to its remarkable contribution to the strength and durability but increases significantly the fabrication cost of UHSC. Accordingly, this study investigates the replacement of silica fume by blast furnace slag (BS) and fly ash (FA) in order to lower the fabrication cost of 80MPa-UHSC. To that goal, experiment is conducted on the mix proportions of mortar in terms of its binder combination, water-to-binder ratio (W/B) and unit binder content. Based on the experimental data, a mix design of concrete is derived and its properties are verified. The results reveal that a W/B of 21% and unit binder content of $720kg/m^3$ are appropriate to achieve 80MPa-UHSC using a binder composed of 60% of OPC, 30% of BS and 10% of FA. The properties of the corresponding UHSC are seen to be satisfactory with a slump flow of 715mm and compressive strength of 97MPa at 28days. The application of the binder combination derived in this study is analyzed to reduce the cost by 50% of binder compared to the mix using silica fume while realizing equivalent performance.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.314-317
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• 2007

The Inhalation of certain freshly formed metal oxides can cause metal fume fever, which is an acute, self-limiting, flu-like illness. The most common cause of this syndrome is the inhalation of zinc oxide. The inhalation of zinc oxide can lead to tracheobronchiolitis, chemical pulmonary edema or to respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS). We encountered a 43-years-old man who developed severe dyspnea after inhaling of zinc oxide while working for 5 hours in a closed space. He was diagnosed with ARDS and was treated successfully with glucocorticoid. We report a case of ARDS caused by the inhalation of zinc fumes.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.403-416
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• 2020

This study investigated the effect of alkaline activators - NaOH_aq (NH) (NH: 0-16 M) and Na₂SiO_3aq (NS) (NS/NH: 0-3.5) in the synthesis of silico-manganese fume (SMF) and ground blast furnace slag (BFS) blended alkali-activated mortar (AASB). The use of individual activator was ineffective in producing AASB of sufficient fresh and hardened properties, compared to the synergy of both activators. This may be attributed to incomplete dissolution and condensation of oligomers required for gelation of the binder. An inverse relationship was noted among the fresh properties and the NH concentration or NS/NH ratio. This was influenced by the dissolution and condensation of silicate monomers under polymerization process. The maximum 28-day strength of ~45 MPa, setting time of 60 min and flow of 182 mm was obtained with the use of combined activators (10M-NH and NS/NH=2.5). The combined activators at NS/10M-NH=2.5 constituted SiO₂/Na₂O, H₂O/Na₂O and H₂O/SiO₂ molar ratio of 1.61, 17.33 and 10.77, respectively. This facilitated the formation of C-S-H, C/K-A-S-H and C-Mn-S-H in the framework together with an increase in the crystallinity due to more silicate re-organization within the aluminosilicate chain. On comparison of the high concentrated with mild alkali synthesized product, it revealed that the concentration of OH^- and Si monomers together with alkali metals influenced the dissolution of precursors and embedment of the constituent elements in the polymeric matrix. These factors eventually contributed to the microstructural densification of the mortar prepared with NS/10M-NH=2.5 thereby enhancing the compressive strength.