• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.57-64
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• 2015

Carbon dioxide extinguishing systems are broadly used for onshore and offshore fire accidents because of excellent performance and low cost. However, there is risk with carbon dioxide systems, which have caused many injuries and deaths by suffocation associated with industrial and marine fire protection applications. In this study, a numerical analysis was performed to predict the fire suppression characteristics of a carbon dioxide system in the compressor room of ships. A double protection safety system is suggested to prevent suffocation accidents from carbon dioxide extinguishing systems. Four scenarios were selected to study the variation of the heat release rate, maximum temperature, a $CO_2$ and $O_2$ mole fraction, and fire suppression characteristics with the carbon dioxide system. The importance of proper design is suggested for a ventilation system in the compressor room of ships.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.133-138
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• 2003

The data on outbreaks of puffer fish poisoning during 1991 to 2002 in Korea were gathered from press reports, and characterized information collected. During the period, a total of 32 outbreaks of puffer fish poisoning was reported. These outbreaks caused 111 persons to become poisoning, among the cases 30 persons were fatal. The mean case fatality rate was 27.0%, and most of deaths (93.3%) were the male of above 29 years old. Patient number of below 4 persons per a poisoning accident occupied 75.0% of total outbreaks; 65.8% of total cases; and 66.7% of total deaths) was occurred in the months, November through January. Most of puffer fish poisoning (75.0% of total outbreaks; 68.5% of total cases; and 73.3% of total deaths) were found along the south coastal area of Korea, including Busan, Gyeongsangnam-do, Jeollanam-do and Jeju-do. Over than 80% of puffer fish poisoning outbreaks occurred at fishing boat and home where privately made food was cause, and outbreaks in restaurants accounted for 15.6%. Most commonly implicated foods were Guk, boiled soup with puffer fish meat and spices.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2016

Before urban railway vehicles reach their design life-span, operating agencies should determine when to buy new vehicles. Previous LCC (Life Cycle Cost) studies were limited because they independently focused on existing vehicles based on costs that directly impacted only the operating agency without considering effects such as social costs and the reduction of maintenance costs. Thus, it is difficult to systematically determine when to buy new vehicles. This study investigated the operating and maintenance related costs, especially from additional expenses and social costs due to unexpected vehicle failures and safety accidents, and did an economic analysis of scenarios with different discount rates. Considering that the public is very concerned about safety after the Sewol ferry accident, additional costs, which include social costs, should be included in the analysis. This study shows that the economic priority of scenarios may change depending on whether those costs are included and on the discount rate. The results of this study can help in the decision-making process for the planning and buying of new trains.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.1-20
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• 2016

A condensation heat transfer model is very important for the safety analysis of nuclear power plants. Especially, condensation under the presence of noncondensable gases (NCGs) is an important issue in nuclear safety because the presence of even a small quantity of NCGs in the vapor largely reduces the condensation rate. In this study, the condensation heat transfer model of the severe accident analysis code MELCOR 1.8.6 has been assessed using a set of condensation experiments performed under the thermal-hydraulic conditions similar to those inside a containment during design-basis accidents or severe accidents. Experiment conditions are categorized into 4 types according to the shape of the condensation surface: vertical flat plates, outer surface of vertical pipes, inner surface of vertical pipes, the inner surface of horizontal pipes. The results of the calculations show that the MELCOR code generally under-predicts the condensation heat transfer except the condensation on inner surface of vertical pipes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.459-466
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• 2018

Hazardous and Noxious Substances (HNS) are defined as substances that are likely to create a significant impact on human health and marine ecosystem when they are released into the marine environment. Recently, as the volume of HNS transported by ships increases, the rate of leakage accidents also increases. Therefore, research should be conducted to control and monitor sunken materials from the viewpoint of technology development for hazardous material leakage accident response. In this paper, acoustic detection experiments were carried out using HNS substitute materials in order to confirm the possibility of acoustic detection of sunken HNS on the sediment. The castor oil, which has a similar acoustic impedance with chloroform, is used as a substitute. 200 kHz high frequency signals were used to discriminate the reflected signals and measure reflection loss from the interface between water and castor oil. The reflection loss measured is in good agreement with the modeling results, showing a possibility of acoustic detection for sunken HNS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.731-736
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• 2021

Oil fences effectively prevent the spread of oil spilled in the sea, thereby reducing the damage to the marine environment. However, the fence is damaged by oil and structures at the accident site and is discarded. When incinerated disposal method for discarded fences, fine dust, and harmful materials are generated. Moreover, as a part of the damaged fence is dumped into the sea, it may cause secondary environmental pollution, such as microplastics. Therefore, in this study, durability was measured using the most common solid foam type oil fences. As a result, the reduction rate of after five days of contact was 13 % in seawater and 3 % in oil, affected by temperature changes. Thus, the durability of the fence should be improved because it is exposed to seawater and oil and affected by wind, light, and waves depending on the weather conditions. Therefore, we suggest a method to improve the oil fence inspection to strengthen the durability of the fence's fabric part.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2019

Korean seafarers have played a key role throughout the country's history and economic development. They have been a major source of foreign remittance into the nation as well as a pivotal sector in emergency logistics during war times. However, the current number of Korean seafarers in decreasing due to low job attractiveness and retention rate onboard. This is a major problem for the national and international shipping industry as youth seem not to be interested in working onboard for long periods of time. The purpose of this study is to 1) determine what the public opinion about seafarers in Korea is and 2) find out what factors mostly stand out in the public opinion about seafarers profession. The paper suggests that three main types of opinion groups emerged. The first type is labeled as 'high risk, high workload and high stress' as respondents recognized a high possibility of accident onboard and, at the same time, acknowledged that seafarers can be fatigued and stressed. The second type was named as 'Dangerous, Dirty, Difficult', as seafarers' image was mainly associated to fishing vessels and not to merchant and passenger ships. The third type recognized that the social position of the seafarers was low due to 'low social recognition'. The study suggests that all three types have a negative image of seafarers' job. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to establish various policies and marketing tools to improve the negative job image linked to seafarers by the public opinion. If the public image of seafarers can be improved and attractiveness rose, it is expected a higher number of seafarers will pursue and keep a career at sea.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.391-402
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• 2017

The Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) has developed a concrete cask for the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel that has been generated by domestic light-water reactors. During long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel in concrete casks kept in dry conditions, the integrity of the concrete cask and spent nuclear fuel must be maintained. In addition, the radiation dose rate must not exceed the storage facility's design standards. A suitable shielding design for radiation protection must be in place for the dry storage facilities of spent nuclear fuel under normal and accident conditions. Evaluation results show that the appropriate distance to the annual dose rate of 0.25 mSv for ordinary citizens is approximately 230 m. For a $2{\times}10$ arrangement within storage facilities, rollover accidents are assumed to have occurred while transferring one additional storage cask, with the bottom of the cask facing the controlled area boundary. The dose rates of 12.81 and 1.28 mSv were calculated at 100 m and 230 m from the outermost cask in the $2{\times}10$ arrangement. Therefore, a spent nuclear fuel concrete cask and storage facilities maintain radiological safety if the distance to the appropriately assessed controlled area boundary is ensured. In the future, the results of this study will be useful for the design and operation of nuclear power plant on-site storage or intermediate storage facilities based on the spent fuel management strategy.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1161-1175
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• 2018

An unexpected event could be easily followed by a large secondary accident due to the limitation in sight of drivers in road tunnels. Therefore, a series of automated incident detection systems have been under operation, which, however, appear in very low detection rates due to very low image qualities on CCTVs in tunnels. In order to overcome that limit, deep learning based tunnel incident detection system was developed, which already showed high detection rates in November of 2017. However, since the object detection process could deal with only still images, moving direction and speed of moving vehicles could not be identified. Furthermore it was hard to detect stopping and reverse the status of moving vehicles. Therefore, apart from the object detection, an object tracking method has been introduced and combined with the detection algorithm to track the moving vehicles. Also, stopping-reverse discrimination algorithm was proposed, thereby implementing into the combined incident detection processes. Each performance on detection of stopping, reverse driving and fire incident state were evaluated with showing 100% detection rate. But the detection for 'person' object appears relatively low success rate to 78.5%. Nevertheless, it is believed that the enlarged richness of image big-data could dramatically enhance the detection capacity of the automatic incident detection system.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.32-40
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• 2019

This study analyzed operating condition and the problems of damage compensation insunace (property insurance) for qualified architect and derived some suggsetions for improvement. The Certified Architects Act requires all building design and construction supervision to buy property insurance. This study proposes following suggestions to solve problems of current architect property insurance. Firstly, we need to increase the insurance purchasing rate of damage compensation insurance for qualified architect. It is necessary to clearly specify the matters concerning the submission of insurance policies by the architects, which is currently carried out by the Minister's official letter, in the form of official announcement. Secondly, proper insured amount should be adjusted. In order to insured substantial compensation capacity, total amount of insurance should be enlarged. Thirdly, the insurance period should be extended to one year after completion of building to allow compensation for accidents due to design negligence. Generally, the design defect can mostly be identified within one year after completion. Fourthly, insurance coverage should be extended. In the long run, it is essential to enlarge the scope of the security not only to property damage but also to human losses. Finally, an accident record sharing system should be established among insurance companies, so that proper insurance premiums or discounts can be made based on the system.