• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.26-31
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• 2021

Buildings with glass curtain walls have become popular due to their appealing aesthetics and ability to let in natural light. However, light reflection from the glass surface is unavoidable in these buildings. In particular, the reflection of light from the glass envelope can create afterimage glare, a hazard to nearby drivers and pedestrians. Despite this potential danger, glare from buildings with curtain walls has not been well-studied. Hence, we analyzed the effect of light reflection on glare around a glass-enclosed skyscraper, depending on its surface reflectance. We investigated the potential hazard of glare to drivers using a commercially available software program. The results indicate that the direction of light reflection is distinctive when the incident angle of solar light increases. Moreover, this light reflection is high enough to induce an afterimage to drivers and pedestrians near the building. We found that keeping the reflectance of the building surface under 3% is required to minimize the afterimage hazard to drivers. Consequently, we recommend managing glass reflectance and installing additional traffic safety systems to reduce traffic accidents near curtain wall buildings.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.981-988
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• 2023

A seismic event caused an accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which further resulted in simultaneous accidents at several units. Consequently, this incident has aroused great interest in the safety of nuclear power plants worldwide. A reasonable safety evaluation of such an external event should appropriately consider the correlation between SSCs (structures, systems, and components) and the probability of failure. However, a probabilistic safety assessment in current nuclear industries is performed conservatively, assuming that the failure correlation between SSCs is independent or completely dependent. This is an extreme assumption; a reasonable risk can be calculated, or risk-based decision-making can be conducted only when the appropriate failure correlation between SSCs is considered. Thus, this study analyzed the effect of the failure correlation of SSCs on the safety of the system to realize rational safety assessment and decision-making. Consequently, the impact on the system differs according to the size of the failure probability of the SSCs and the AND and OR conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2018.11a
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• pp.96-97
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• 2018

Facilities used by senior citizens, infants, and disabled people have characteristics that make it difficult to escape on their own or require a lot of evacuation time. Therefore, to ensure safety in case of fire, clear measures for securing safety of facilities, fire response methods, and training are required in accordance with the regulations. In case of postnatal care center facilities, newborn babies and mothers reside 24 hours a day, and as they are located in high-rise and multi-use facilities, measures for fire safety are necessary, but the domestic manual lacks. Accordingly, a field survey for security of the manual revealed that the establishment of awareness and facilities on temporary waiting areas and smoke control, which are easy for evacuation and fire safety, was a problem.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.51-56
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• 2009

Safety and quality assessment systems are very important in manufacture, storage, transportation, and handling of hazardous materials(hazmat) to prevent hazmat disasters. At present, hazardous materials exist everywhere in our daily lives with various forms of plastics, household products of cleaning and washing detergents, fertilizers or petroleum-related products. However, hazardous materials are dangerous substances when they are released to human or environment. Hazardous materials become very widely used substances in the age of oil-based industrial economy. The Korean Ministry of Environment (KMOE) describes about one hundred thousand types of chemicals are produced and used worldwide. Over four hundred new chemicals are introduced in every year. A crucial question for the Korean hazardous material management may have been raised: Will you be safe from hazardous material incidents? The gas leak disaster at Union Carbide's Bhopal, India in 1984 that made over 6,400 people killed and 30,000 to 40,000 people seriously injured is the representative case for the safety of hazmat. Korea becomes vulnerable to hazmat disaster due to the development of high-tech industry. Thus, the risk assessment system is required to Korea for transferring abandoned hazmat management systems to self-correcting safety systems. This research analyzed characteristics of various hazmat incidents applying statistical analysis methods including frequency analysis or analysis of category data to hazmat incidents for ten years. All of three analyses of category data indicate the significance of causality between hazmat incident site groups and seasons, regional groups, and incident casualty groups.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.97-112
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• 2021

This study introduces lessons learned from investigation and analysis of major domestic and overseas cases of marine chemical incidents involving hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) during maritime transportation by chemical tankers carrying petrochemical products in bulk. The study then suggests plans to improve domestic marine HNS training curricula based on these lessons. Lessons learned from six incident cases are classified into the following six categories: 1) incident-related information, 2) safety, 3) pollution, 4) response, 5) salvage and 6) others. Based on these six categories, it is suggested that the curriculum provided by the Marine Environment Research & Training Institute for marine pollution prevention managers aboard noxious liquid substance carriers should be changed from the existing two-day training of eight subjects (16 h) to a three-day training of sixteen subjects (24 h). In addition, it is proposed that the marine chemical incident response course of the Korea Coast Guard Academy should be changed from the existing five-day training of fifteen subjects (35 h) to a six-day training of thirty-two subjects (48 h). These results are expected to contribute to sharing experiences and lessons learned about response to marine chemical incidents and to be used as basic data for improving the education and training courses for response personnel in preparedness for marine HNS incidents.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.343-349
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• 2022

Background: In the United States, the dairy product manufacturing industry has consistently had higher rates of work-related nonfatal injuries and illnesses compared to the national average for industries in all sectors. The selection and implementation of appropriate safety performance indicators are important aspect of reducing risk within safety management systems. This study examined the leading safety indicators implemented in the dairy product-manufacturing sector (NAICS 3115) and their perceived effectiveness in reducing work-related injuries. Methods: Perceptions were collected from individuals with safety responsibilities in the dairy product manufacturing facilities. OSHA Incident Rate (OIR) and Days away, restricted and transferred (DART) rates from 2013 to 2018 were analyzed. Results: The perceived most effective leading were safety observations, stop work authority, near miss reporting, safety audits, preventative maintenance, safety inspections, safety training attendance, and job hazard analysis/safety analysis, respectively. The 6-year trend analysis showed that those implementing all eight top indicators had a slightly lower rates than those that did not implement all eight. Production focused mentality, poor training, and lack of management commitment were perceived as the leading causes of injuries in this industry. Conclusion: Collecting leading indicators with the unique interest to meet the regulatory requirements and to document the management system without the actual goal of using them as input to improve the system most probably will not lead to an effective reduction of negative safety outcomes. For leading indicators to be effective, they should be properly selected, executed, periodically evaluated and actions are taken when necessary.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.456-465
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• 2021

For predictive aviation safety management, the establishment of safety performance indicators to measure and manage the safety performance of service providers must be preceded. In particular, leading indicators are significant in that they play an important role in identifying and managing the causes of accident/incident in advance. However, the current safety performance indicators of the domestic aviation industry have limitations in that they focus on lagging indicators based on events that have already occurred. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to construct Korean leading indicators for preventive safety management. In addition, we verify the validity and importance of the indicators based on review of the experts and AHP analysis. This study is meaningful in that it can support the proactive safety management of the domestic aviation industry through the development of leading safety indicators, which have been relatively lacking in research.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.48-55
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• 2015

The number of collapse accidents relevant to form support since 2003 is 30 on the basis of statistical data from Ministry of Employment and Labor,. Total number of casualty was 138 (47 for deaths and 91 for injuries). The accident severity rate was high because the 4.6 casualties per one accident were occurred averagely although the incident rate was relatively low. Especially, one of form support members, the pipe supports have not been equipped adequately so that the accidents could have happened. In this regard, this study performed buckling test related to the effect of horizontal connection and slope in the single pipe which is one of typical pipe supports. The buckling load, which was estimated from the single pipe with the horizontal connectors theoretically and experimentally, was increased as more than 2 times compared to the buckling load obtained from the pipe supports without the connector. The buckling load was reduced as more than 26%, 34% slope of the single pipe comparing with 5% and 10% slope, respectively. Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide the guideline for installation and the maintenance of the pipe supports legally and institutionally to prevent the collapse accidents of the pipe supports.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.194-200
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• 2016

Background: The influence of sociocultural factors on human reliability within an open sociotechnical systems is highlighted. The design of such systems is enhanced by experience feedback. Methods: The study was focused on a survey related to the observation of working cases, and by processing of incident/accident statistics and semistructured interviews in the qualitative part. In order to consolidate the study approach, we considered a schedule for the purpose of standard statistical measurements. We tried to be unbiased by supporting an exhaustive list of all worker categories including age, sex, educational level, prescribed task, accountability level, etc. The survey was reinforced by a schedule distributed to 300 workers belonging to two oil companies. This schedule comprises 30 items related to six main factors that influence human reliability. Results: Qualitative observations and schedule data processing had shown that the sociocultural factors can negatively and positively influence operator behaviors. Conclusion: The explored sociocultural factors influence the human reliability both in qualitative and quantitative manners. The proposed model shows how reliability can be enhanced by some measures such as experience feedback based on, for example, safety improvements, training, and information. With that is added the continuous systems improvements to improve sociocultural reality and to reduce negative behaviors.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.79-87
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• 2009

The objective of this study is to develop accident scenario models for the risk assessment of railway casualty accidents. To develop these scenario models, hazardous events and hazardous factors were identified by gathering various accident reports and information. Then, the accident scenario models were built up. Each accident scenario model consists of an occurrence scenario model and a progress scenario model. The occurrence scenario refers to the occurrence process of the event before the hazardous event. The progress scenario means the progress process of the event after the hazardous event. To manage a large amount of accident/incident data and scenarios, a railway accident analysis information system was developed using railway accident scenario models. To test the feasibility of the developed scenario models, more than 800 domestic railway casualty accidents that occurred in 2004 and 2005 were investigated and quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed using the developed information system.