• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.134-152
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• 2020

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toluene diisocyanates (TDIs) exposure among polyurethane waterproofing workers in the construction industry. Methods: Task-based personal air samplings were carried out at seven construction sites using organic vapor monitor for VOCs (n=88) and glass fiber filters coated with 1-(2-pyridyl)piperazine(1-2PP) for TDIs (n=81). The concentration of VOCs and TDIs were shown for four different work types(mixing paint, primer roller painting, urethane resin spread painting, painter assistant) at five different worksites (rooftop, ground parking lot, piloti, bathroom, and swimming pool). The two TDI sampling methods (filter vs impinger) were evaluated in parallel to compare the concentrations. Results: The geometric mean(GM) concentration of VOCs Exposure Index (EI) was highest for primer roller painting (1.4), followed in order by, urethane resin spread painting (0.85), mixing paint (0.53), and painter assistant (0.35) by work types. The GM of VOCs EI was highest for bathroom (1.4) followed in order by, swimming pool (0.85), piloti (0.89), ground parking lot (0.82) and rooftop (0.57) by worksites. The GM of 2,4-/2,6-TDI concentration was 0.052 ppb and 0.432 ppb each. There was no statistical difference in TDIs concentrations among worksites. The concentration of 2,6-TDI was ten times higher than that of 2,4-TDI. The concentration of 2,6-TDI by impinger method was 5.7 times higher than that by filter method. Conclusions: In this study, we found 38.6% of the VOCs samples exceeded the occupational exposure limits and 19.8% of the 2,6-TDI samples exceeded 1 ppb among polyurethane waterproofing workers. The most important determinants that increase the concentration of VOCs and TDIs was indoor environment and primer painting work.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.1723-1726
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• 2003

Clean and well maintained roadway signs are important for preserving driver's safety. The existing signs on the roadway must be periodically re-painted in order to maintain clean state. However, current sign painting operations are manually performed now. These are very slow and workers are exposed to very dangerous and hazard working environment. In this paper, we present the method for automating this job with gantry robot and spray system. In addition, we suggest two design concepts to resolve the problem that it is impractical to make the gantry system so big as to cover whole lane width. In order to show the validity of this system, the painting operation is simulated and experimentally executed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.375-382
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• 2013

Down through the years, human needs and desires have required a robot system to work at hazardous environments instead. Current painting task is costly and laborious, and it exposes workers to significant health and safety risks. Automation system offers potential improvement in this area and is especially well suited to the outer-wall painting tasks in concrete structures. This paper introduces the result of gondola-type building management robot(G-BMR) platform and mechanism for moving/tasking on building outer-wall for the outer-wall painting. Its technical and economic feasibility are conducted, and it is concluded that developing G-BMR is physically and economically feasible in this research. And we discuss about the future of G-BMR and automation in construction field.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.695-703
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• 2010

Training is one of the representative application fields of virtual reality technology where users can have virtual experience in a training task and working environment. Widely used in the medical and military fields, virtual-reality-based training systems are also useful in industrial fields, such as the aerospace industry, since they show superiority over real training environments in terms of accessibility, safety, and cost. The shipbuilding industry is known as a labor-intensive industry that demands a lot of skilled workers. In particular, painting jobs in the shipbuilding industry require a continuous supplement of human resources since many workers leave due to the poor working environment. In this paper, the authors present a virtual-reality-based training system for spray painting tasks in the shipbuilding industry. The design issues and implementation details of the training system are described, and also its advantages and shortcomings are discussed based on use cases in actual work fields.

• Special Issue of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.123-129
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• 2009

Ship painting procedures can be divided into two categories; Out-shell plate painting of the hull and the interior painting of each double gull blocks. It is really hard to apply standardized and automated operations to the latter because the double hull blocks contains a variety of complicated supportive materials and pipes to strengthen the ship structure. In addition their poor working conditions cause painting workers to avoid working in them, resulting in the waste of paints and additional pollution issues. So this research, successfully focused on overcoming the difficulties in working in the complicated blocks and the tough working conditions introduces the main details of automatic equipment systems and their transfer algorism which show how the equipment paints the inner sides of a longitudinal stiffener and moves to another automatically.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate 1) blood lead levels of workers at auto repair shops as Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) of toxic substances such as lead and toluene that are produced during automotive painting process, 2) the differences depending on personal characteristics of workers who have been exposed to toluene by using urine hippuric acid concentration as a marker and 3) the correlation between the concentration of hazardous chemicals in each workplace and the BEL. All subjects were male with a mean age of 36.2 years. In terms of age, most were in the 30 to 40 age group (13 persons, 48.1%). In relation to the length of work experience, the highest proportion had experience of 10 years of less (18 persons, 66.7%). Twenty three workers were cigarette smokers (85.2%) while 4 (14.8%) were non-smokers. In addition, more than 80% of the workers drank alcohol. Dust concentration and toluene exposure during automotive painting showed no significant difference with age, length of work experience, smoking and drinking while a significant difference (p<0.05) has been detected between lead concentration and smoking. The geometric mean of dust concentration, lead concentration and toluene concentration were $0.38mg/m^3,\;0.0021mg/m^3$ and 1.08ppm respectively. In addition, the geometric mean of blood lead levels and urine hippuric acid concentration were $1.70{\mu}g/dl$ and 0.25g/g respectively, which were lower than the standard levels suggested by the Ministry of Labor. To determine the influential factors on blood lead and urine hippuric acid concentrations, a correlation analysis has been conducted with variables of air, lead and toluene concentrations, age, length of work experience and amount of cigarette smoking. According to the analysis, a relatively high correlation (p<0.01) has been observed between air lead concentration and biological sample concentration.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1268-1279
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• 2005

The current method for pavement sign marking operations is labor-intensive and very dangerous due to the exposure of workers to passing traffic. It also requires blocking traffic for a long period of time resulting serious traffic jam. This paper deals with the development of a robotic system for automating the pavement sign painting operations. The robotic system consists of gantry frame equipped with transverse drive rail and automatic paint spray system. The workspace of the gantry robot is extended to one-lane width with the transverse rail system. This research also includes the development of font data structures that contain the shape information of pavement signs, such as Korean letters, English letters and symbols. The robot path is generated with this font data through the procedures of scaling up/down and partitioning the signs to be painted depending on the workspace size.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.156-172
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• 1999

Potential chemical hazards encountered in painting operation of four shipyards and a ship-repair shop were investigated through the material safety data sheets (MSDS). Material safety data sheets (MSDS) for 307 paints, 50 thinners and 34 binders were collected and reviewed. It was shown that various organic solvents such as aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic hydrocarbons, ketones, alcohols, glycols, glycol ether acetates and esters were contained in painting materials. Of these solvents, xylene was found in the largest number of painting materials. sixty percent of the thinners contained xylene in the contents of 20-100%. Other most frequently found solvents were 1-methoxypropanol, 1-methoxypropyl acetate, n-butanol, methyl isobutyl ketone, toluene, isopropanol, and n-butyl acetate, etc. Glycol ethers such as 2-methoxyethanol (2-ME), 2-methoxyethyl acetate (2-MEA), 2-ethoxyethanol (2-EE), 2-ethoxyethyl acetate (2-EEA) and 2-butoxyethanol (2-BA) were regarded as having the potential to cause adverse reproductive effects, embryotoxic effect and hematotoxic effects, and were found in some epoxy panting materials. Coal tar pitch was included in some paints(13%) where polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) could be contaminated. Inorganic pigments such as lead chromate and zinc potassium chromate were found in some paints (8%). The epoxy resin based paints, which may contain isocyanates such as toluene diisocyanates and hexamethylene diisocyanates causing potential sensitization and asthma to upper respiratory organ, were mostly used in the shipyards. The constituents in the MSDS were significantly different from the results analyzed using gas chromatography/mass detector: minor constituents or impurities were omitted in many MSDS. In conclusion, xylene was the most frequent organic solvent in painting materials, and glycol ethers, including 2-ME, 2-MEA, 2-EE, 2-EEA and 2-BA, were found some products. Also, painting workers may be exposed to PAHs, lead, chromate, isocyanates, organic tin and other various chemicals. The compositions of chemicals in painting materials were variable significantly, and the hazards were changed. These facts should be considered in environmental monitoring and control of the hazards.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.177-183
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• 2012

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to discuss the importance of job stress and to introduce a model of job stress at the shipbuilding industry considering the characteristics of the shipbuilding works. Background: Shipbuilding works consist of grinding, painting, interior works, welding, and assembling and using heavy equipment in narrow space or work at outside or at high and dangerous places. The working environments aggravate the stress to the workers. Methods: Studies of job stress in industries including shipbuilding industries were reviewed and the characteristics of jobs of shipbuilding were analyzed to find causes of job stress. Results: A model was constructed based upon these findings and reviews. Conclusions: Job stress of shipbuilding workers are very high and thus job and working conditions need to be improved to attenuate the level of job stress of shipbuilding workers. Applications: This model can be used to identify the highly stressed workers and sources of stress.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2012

This study is assessed the urinary hippuric acid (HA) concentration in toluene-exposed workers. Toluene is widely used in the coating, printing, painting and petroleum industries. We analyzed the hippuric acid level of toluene-exposed workers (males: 198, females: 63) from 2008 to 2010 and examined the relationship between hippuric acid and the characteristics of their work. The measurements of the urinary hippuric acid were confirmed by high-performance liquid chromatography. Among the subjects, males had on average more work experience than females (males: 9.17 years, females: 4.45 years), but females showed a higher hippuric acid concentration levels than males (males: 0.26 g/L, females: 0.75 g/L). The mean of the HA concentration according to the age group was 0.19 g/L in 30's, 0.30 g/L in 40's, 0.54 g/L in 50's, 1.36 g/L in 60's. Those in their 60's had the highest concentration. The mean of HA concentration according to the type of work was 0.70 g/L for the coating, 0.52 g/L for the painting, and 0.16 g/L for the printing industries, revealing that the workers in the coating industry had the highest concentration. By the highest order, the mean of HA concentration by working period was as follows; less than 5 years, ${\leq}5\;years{\sim}<10\;years$. The factors that influence the HA concentration are not only how long one is exposed to toluene but also the type of work, worker's age, and their gender.