• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.112-117
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• 2012

With the development of nanotechnology, nano-consumer products have been popularized. For the past 10 years, potential risk of nanomaterials to human and environment have been raised carefully. Especially, workers, who directly handle nanomaterials in laboratories and manfacturers, will lead to direct exposure of nanomaterials. Therefore, direct exposure assessment and field monitoring of nanomaterials are required to assess and manage the nanomaterial exposure to human and environment. In this work, two nano-manufacturing companies, which had plasma and sol-gel processes, were selected to analyze the main exposure source and process with in-situ SMPS (scanning mobility particle sizer) and ex-situ TEM (transmission electron microscopy). The results showed that the colloidal nanoparticle in liquid phase was easily evaporated and monitored by SMPS. Most serious thing is that the workers does not know about the potential risk of nanomaterials, and thus they are not taking proper protection activities, such as PPE (personal protective equipment). Therefore, exposure assessment for nanomaterial handling facilities should be additionally carried out, and nano-safety management protocols are also provided.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.204-215
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• 2008

Many researches for service-life of chemical cartridges of respirators have been performed in many countries. On the result of these researches a few softwares programs were eventually developed to be used. In spite of that, it is difficult to apply these researches and softwares practically in the work spot because of too many factors that influence on service-life of chemical cartridges. This study was the first of two conducted for the purpose of developing program for estimating exchange period or service-life of chemical cartridges available feasibly in the workplaces. Collecting plan of cartridges discarded after use is in principle that three cartridges from three workers at a time, three steps of 1/2 exchange time due to smelling, just routine exchange time and 1.2 to 1.3 expanded time of routine exchange, total nine cartridges are collected in the same job site. 33 cartridges for organic vapor were collected in paint spray process of ship yard and paint factory, and 6 cartridges for acid were collected in plating process. These cartridges were analysed the remaining breakthrough time in 3M Innovation Center. Challenge vapor and breakthrough concentration were complied with Korean regulation for chemical cartridge respirators. Estimated breakthrough time was determined from previously used time plus breakthrough time for the remaining. Exchange period of cartridge would be the shortest time among three estimated breakthrough times. On the result breakthrough time for organic vapor was found to be relatively easily estimated, but that for acid aerosol or vapor was difficult to be confident. Even though this method was difficult to be precisely predicted exchange period of cartridge, it could be an alternative program practically available in the job site.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.224-229
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• 2020

We propose a machine learning-based method for proactively detecting faults in LDPE processes and predicting equipment lifespan. It is important to detect and prevent unexpected faults in chemical processes in order to maximize safety and productivity. Since LDPE process is a high-pressure process up to 3,000 kg/㎠g or more, once ESD occurs, it can result in productivity loss due to increased maintenance periods. By collecting key variables operation data of the process and using unsupervised machine leaning methods, we developed a fault detection model which detected 4 ESDs 2.4 days prior to the occurrence. In addition, it was confirmed that the life expectancy of a hyper compressor can be predicted by using the physically significant key variables.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Handmade hydrated lime has been used for preservation and repair of architectural heritage in Korea. However, the effect of the amount of water used for slaking quicklime on the physical and chemical properties of the hydrated lime, which is the result of the slaking process, has not been clearly understood. In this study, particle size distribution, chemical composition and crystalline phases of the hydrated lime are investigated by varying the amount of water used for the slaking. In addition, temperature history during the slaking process is examined. For this, various experiments, such as laser diffraction analysis, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and temperature recording using a thermocouple, were performed. When the quicklime came into contact with water, its temperature reached $100^{\circ}C$ within 10 min due to sudden exothermic reaction of calcium oxide, and this temperature was maintained for about 30 min. The water to lime ratio influenced the cooling rate during the slaking process; that is, the more water was used, the longer it took to reach an ambient temperature. The amount of water for the slaking did not have a noticeable effect on the contents of major components of the hydrated lime such as calcium hydroxide and calcium carbonate, but when slaked with more amount of water, average particle size of the lime tended to decrease. The experimental results in this study can be used as references for developing guidelines on the safety or appropriate amount of water in the lime slaking process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.87-101
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• 2012

In gas industries, the potential risks of serious accidents have been increased due to high technology application and process complexities. Especially, in case of gas-related accidents, the extent of demage is out of control since gas plants handle and produce combustible, flammable, explosive and toxic materials in large amounts. The characteristics of this kind of disaster is that accident frequency is low, while the impact of damage is high, extending to the neighboring residents, environment and related industries as well as employees involved. The hydrogen gases treated important things and it used the basic material of chemical plants and industries. Since 2000, this gas stood in the spotlight the substitution energy for reduction of the global warming in particular however it need to compress high pressure(more than 150 bar.g) and store by using the special cylinders due to their low molecular weight. And this gas led to many times the fire and explosion due to leak of it. To reduce these kinds of risks and accidents, it is necessary to improve the new safety management system through a risk management after technically evaluating potential hazards in this process. This study is to carry out the quantitative risk assesment for hydrogen filling plant which are very dangerous(fire and explosive) and using a basic materials of general industries. As a results of this risk assessment, identified the elements important for safety(EIS) and suggested the practical management tools and verified the reliability of this risk assessment model through case study of accident.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.36-41
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• 2008

For the safety design and operation of many chemical process, it is necessary to know certain explosion limit, flash point and autoignition temperature(AIT) of handling substances. Also it is necessary to know explosion limit at high temperature and pressure. For the safe handling of MEK(methyl ethyl ketone), explosion limit at $25^{\circ}C$ and the temperature dependence of the explosion limits were investigated. And flash point and AIT for MEK were experimented. By using the literatures data, the lower and upper explosion limits of MEK recommended 1.8 vol% and 11.0 vol%, respectively. In this study, measured the lower and upper flash points of MEK were $-5^{\circ}C$ and $22^{\circ}C$, respectively. This study measured relationship between the AITs and the ignition delay times by using ASTM E659-78 apparatus for MEK, and the experimental AIT of MEK was $507^{\circ}C$. The new equations for predicting the temperature dependence of the explosion limits of MEK is proposed. The values calculated by the proposed equations were a good agreement with the literature data.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 2002

The Decomposition of NO$_2$ (nitrogen dioxide), one of the Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP), was studied by utilizing the SPCP (Surface induced discharge Plasma Chemical Processing) reactor so as to obtain optimum process variables and maximum decomposition efficiencies. Experimental results showed that for the frequency of 10kHz, the highest deco position efficiency of 84.7% for NO$_2$ was observed at the power consumptions of 20W. The decomposition efficiency of $NO_2$ was found to be: 1) proportional to the residence times, and inversely proportional to the initial concentrations of $NO_2$; 2) the maximum when the electrode diameter was 3mm; 3) influenced by the electrode material, decreasing in the order of W>Cu>Al; and 4) proportional to the $CH_4$ content, due to which the highest efficiency of 98% was obtained with almost all the $NO_2$ removed.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2011

Process monitoring has been emphasized for the monitoring of complex system such as chemical processing industries to achieve the efficiency enhancement, quality management, safety improvement. Recently, ICA (Independent Component Analysis) based MSPC (Multivariate Statistical Process Control) was widely used in process monitoring approaches. Moreover, DICA (Dynamic ICA) has been introduced to consider the system dynamics. However, the existing approaches show the limitation that their performances are strongly dependent on the statistical distributions of control variables. To improve the limitation, we propose a novel approach for process monitoring by integrating DICA and LOF (Local Outlier Factor). In this paper, we aim to improve the fault detection rate with the proposed method. LOF detects local outliers by using density of surrounding space so that its performance is regardless of data distribution. Therefore, the proposed method not only can consider the system dynamics but can also assure robust performance regardless of the statistical distributions of control variables. Comparison experiments were conducted on the widely used benchmark dataset, Tennessee Eastman process (TE process), and showed the improved performance than existing approaches.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.81-90
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• 2014

Modern systems can be characterized by ever-increasing complexity of both the functionality and system scale. Thus, due to the complexity the chances of accidents resulting from systems failure can then be growing. Even worse is that those accidents could result in disastrous damage to the human being and properties as well. Therefore, the need for the developed systems to be assured with systems safety is apparent in a variety of industries such as rail, automobiles, airplanes, ships, oil refinery, chemical production plants, and so on. To this end, in the industry an appropriate safety standard has been published for its own safety-assured products. One of the core activities included in the most safety standards is hazard analysis. A conventional approach to hazard analysis seems to depend upon the scenarios derived from the ones used previously in similar systems or based on former experience. The objective of this paper is to study an improved process for scenario-based hazard analysis. To achieve the goal, the top-level safety requirements have first been reflected in the scenarios. By analyzing and using them, the result has then lead to the development of safety-assured systems. The method of modeling and simulation has been adopted in the generation and verification of scenarios to check whether the safety requirements are reflected properly in the scenarios. Application of the study result in the case of rail safety assurance has also been discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.131-144
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• 2006

For the purpose of preparing the fundamental data on working environment of small scale manufacturing industries and preventing the occupational diseases of workers in these industries, authors surveyed the status of working environment to several chemical substances and physical agents by types of industry and types of process in the small scale manufacturing industries with less than five workers in Gimhae including 235 workplaces, 14 types of industry and 25 types of process from January 2002 to December 2004. This measurement method was work environment measurement method (established in Ministry of Labor, Korea), analytical methods (2nd Ed.) of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and manual of analytical methods (4th Ed.) of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and collected data was analyzed by using SPSS 10.0 for windows, the results were as follows: 1. Noise generated in 14 types of industry and 22 types of process. an actual level of mean exposure (90.7 dB(A)) exceeded threshold limit values (TLVs) in manufacture of other transport equipment. An actual level of mean exposure (90.2dB) exceeded TLVs in the process of wire-drawing and 90.4dB in the process of wire-stranding. 2. Dusts of type I, II, III were generated in 9 types of industry and 8 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 3. Heavy metals (Pb, Mn, Cr, Ni) were generated in 7 types of industry and 7 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 4. 16 kinds of organic solvents were generated in 11 types of industry and 6 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. As the above results, chemical substances and physical agents were generated in the several different types of industry and process of the manufacturing industry with less than five workers, and only mean level of noise was exceeded TLVs. In case of exceeding threshold limit values, improvement of work environment is actively needed, and work environment management should be performed continuously for prevention of an occupational diseases and work related diseases.