• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.2 s.33
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• pp.212-221
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• 2006

This paper examines the outcomes and tasks of U rail privatization especially focusing on the rail safety. Earlier research which focused on the rail safety had little knowledge of the explanations for recent changes of safety scheme. Moreover, they had difficulty making a direct comparison of safety between national rail and the privatized rail. Therefore we are left without a good explanation which has a comprehensive perspective. I attempt to show the outcomes of safety in the rail privatization process and its tasks focusing on the recent fatal accident. This paper argues that the UK's rail safety has a framework which is too complicated with overlapping responsibilities that brought about inefficiency, increasing costs. Especially infrastructure enterprise did not come to play an appropriate role. However, after 2000, the government took charge of setting the strategy for railway safety, and the Office of Rail Regulation covered safety, performance and cost. I explain that these changes present a good opportunity to solve the problem of passing the buck for rail accident. Through the analysis, I find that outcomes of rail privatization in safety are improved comparing the national rail. However, safety performance, for example the collision of structures of cars and looseness of rail should be improved. In future, the problems of fatal accident and a bit of duplicate safe system should be addressed.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2020

There has been a significant decline in the number of rail accidents in Korea since system safety management activities were introduced. Nonetheless, analyzing and preventing human error-related accidents is still an important issue in railway industry. As a railway system is increasingly automated and intelligent, the mechanism and process of an accident occurrence are more and more complicated. It is now essential to consider a variety of factors and their intricate interactions in the analysis of rail accidents. However, it has proved that traditional accident models and methods based on a linear cause-effect relationship are inadequate to analyze and to assess accidents in complex systems such as railway systems. In order to supplement the limitations of traditional safety methods, recently some systemic safety models and methods have been developed. Of those, FRAM(Functional Resonance Analysis Method) has been recognized as one of the most useful methods for analyzing accidents in complex systems. It reflects the concepts of performance adjustment and performance variability in a system, which are fundamental to understanding the processes of an accident in complex systems. This study aims to apply FRAM to the analysis of a rail accident involving human errors, which occurred recently in South Korea. Through the application of FRAM, we found that it can be a useful alternative to traditional methods in the analysis and assessment of accidents in complex systems. In addition, it was also found that FRAM can help analysts understand the interactions between functional elements of a system in a systematic manner.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.1-4
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• 2009

Various falling prevention systems with vertical guided rail have been supplied in order to prevent falling accidents and acquire the long life and cost down for the maintenance. Almost the imported system is composed of a guided rail and the comfort components. It has the mechanism that cannot be dismounted from the guided rail at the accident site. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop a falling prevent system that has a direct dismounting function, which can release easily from the falling accident point. This system has a high durability and robust. And the cost efficiency of the system and safety for workers also are improved remarkably. From the results, we showed the proposed new falling system is sufficiently safety and satisfies the KOSHA regulation through the numerical stress analysis. Also it is expected as the useful and effective safety device for workers.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.88-96
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• 2001

Rail crossings are major accident-prone areas. Higher traffic volume, frequent rail operation, increased train speed all contribute to increased accident rate and severity In Korea efforts are being made to upgrade currently at-grade rail crossings to grade crossings. There is, however, no quantified analysis measures to analyse the impact of rail grade crossing, thus make it difficult to prioritize different projects under the budget constraints. Projects are selected based on the negotiation between Korea National Railway(KNR) and local governments. To shed light on the development effort for Korean procedure, GradeDec 2000 program of Federal Railroad Adminstration(FRA) was applied for Korean context. Case study involving three rail crossing was ca]lied out, and results are analyzed. Research efforts which need further attention are identified, research direction is analyzed considering local procedure, and issues in the application of the procedures are discussed in detail.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.276-281
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• 2015

Purpose : The purpose of this study is to propose that domestic rail must the work to be done in the RCM system and railway operators are to present a direction to establish the efficient and systematic system based on this. Methods : In recent years, domestic railway accidents has decreased year rapidly every year. In particular, suicidal ideation was greater than 50% of the accidents is showing a larger decrease in the influence of the screen-door construction. However, the train delay has been maintained without major changes since 2010. The most important cause of the delay operation is a vehicle breakdown. This fact demonstrates that effective maintenance of the most important activities in the railway accident prevention activities. So we have to build a RCM system in which the characteristics of the domestic railway accident. Conclusion : We proposed what is necessary functionality and the function requires a railway operators in RCM railway systeml.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.154-161
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• 2011

Rail inspection is very important as damages in rail can bring about a serious railway accident. In this paper, several real-time non-destructive technologies applied or considered to be applied to damage detection of rails are described. Some limits of existing ultrasonic testing method which has been widely used for rail inspection are discussed. Non-contact type NDE methods for rail inspection and their technical problems are also described.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.145-150
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• 2004

In this paper, the hazardous rail-crossings of 100 sites were selected by preliminary hazard analysis on the 1774 sites in Sep. 2002. The risk factors of rail-crossing were reviewed on the accidents happened in '94$\～$'02 years, and the accident progress mechanism due to 5 types of rail-crossing structure was developed by the cause-result relationship analysis. Method coping with the risk factors was proposed for improving safety of rail-crossing.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 2010

Due to the industrialization and urbanization, the transport of hazardous materials increases, which rises possibilities in occurring prospective accidents in terms of hazardous material transport as well. This study applied the model developed from the previous research to analyze the scale of damage areas from the accidents related to hazardous material accidents, as well as suggested a method to measure automatically the scale of accident including casualties and environmental damage based on the guideline which suggests the quantities of hazardous materials exposed from an accident and was defined in the study of standardization for hazardous material classification. A buffering analysis technique of Geographic Information System (GIS) was applied for that. To apply the model which evaluates the scale of population and exposure to environment on each link, rail network, zones, rail accident data, rail freight trips, and locations of rivers etc were complied as a database for GIS analysis. In conclusion, a method to measure damage areas by the types of hazardous materials was introduced using a Clip and a Special Join technique for overlay analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.108-118
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• 2010

This paper analyzes the changes in rail policy in the UK between 1948 and 2007. The UK rail system, once a nationalized industry, was privatized in 1994. Consequently it increased the role of government after 2000, which was a year of frequent rail accident. Recently the UK rail system has made solving global warming and EU interoperability in rail. This paper examines the main factors in changes in rail policy in the UK, which is through the ruling party's ideology, comprehensive transport policy, aimed at reducing global warming and rail accident. Moreover, this paper clarifies the characteristics of rail policy that is consistent with social role of rail, integrative transport policy and acknowledging the positive role of rail against global warming.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.617-625
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• 2012

Non-contact detection of internal defects in a rail using ultrasonic waves is discussed in this paper. Cracks in a rail may be a cause of a serious railway accident such as derailment if left undetected. Concurrent rail inspection method based on ultrasonic testing using piezoelectric transducers has several limitations as it should keep physical contact with the rail. This work suggests a non-contact detection of internal defects in a rail using ElectroMagnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMAT) which can produce and measure ultrasonic waves in a rail without any couplant. The EMATs for rail inspection are designed and fabricated and their working performance is verified through a series of experiments on various types of internal defects in test rails. The effect of lift-off between the transducers and the rail on the generated signals is also discussed.