• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.734-740
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• 2023

Hydrogen emphasis on safety management due to its high potential for accidents from wide explosive limits and low ignition energy. To prevent accidents, appropriate explosion-proof electrical equipment with installed to safe management of ignition sources. However, designing all facilities with explosion-proof structures can significantly increase costs and impose limitations. In this study, we optimize the barrier to effectively control the initial momentum in case of hydrogen release and form the control room as a non-hazardous area. We employed response surface method (RSM), the barrier distance, width and height of the barrier were set as variables. The Box-Behnken design method the selection of 15 cases, and FLACS assessed the presence of hazardous area. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis resulting in an optimized barrier area. Through this methodology, the workplace can optimize the barrier according to the actual workplace conditions and classify reasonable hazardous area, which is believed to secure safety in hydrogen facilities and minimize economic burden.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2002

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.203-213
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• 2005

Purpose: To assess the environmental hazards of falling accident in the homes of the elderly. Method: 222 homes of the elderly were assessed by the home environmental Checklist from May to July in 2003. Results: The mean score of home environmental hazards for fall were 13.19 with the highest score being 49, ranging from 4 to 24. The bathroom was the most hazardous place in the home, porch came next bedroom, kitchen, living room and stair followed them. The floor surface such as finishes and non-skid mats was the most hazardous interior factor in the home, using bathroom came next furniture and illumination followed them. The floor surface such as finishes and non-skid mats in the bathroom, kitchen, living room and porch, illumination of bedroom and stair were the most prevalent hazards in the home of interior. Of the 49 potential hazards, bathroom grab bar was the most prevalent one with 89.9%, and non-skid rugs in the porch, bathroom and kitchen, safety of dinner table, the threshold and furniture of porch, and illumination of bedroom were prevalent more than half of the home under assessing. Men, living in the separate house or villa with stairs were in more hazardous environments. Conclusion: To reduce the potential hazards of fall accident in the home, improving hazards relating to floor surface such as slip resistance surface and mats is important specially those of the separate house or villa with stairs.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.44-47
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• 2017

Isothiazolinone derivatives are widely used in consumer products as disinfectants or preservatives, but there are growing concerns about their impact on human health. Therefore, rapid screening of these biocides is very important for proper control and regulation of potentially hazardous substances. To this end, low-temperature plasma (LTP) ionization mass spectrometry (MS) was investigated to demonstrate its potential for direct and selective analysis of isothiazolinones from sprayed aerosol samples. Benzisothiazolinone (BIT) was clearly identified from a commercial fabric deodorant using LTP ionization MS and MS/MS. LTP allowed selective ionization of BIT directly from the simply sprayed aerosol sample and illustrated its potential for fast screening without sample pre-treatments. Selective nature of LTP ionization, on the other hands, implicates use of LTP ionization MS as a general screening method for specific groups of hazardous chemicals in commercial products.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.803-816
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• 2014

Defense-in-depth is a fundamental safety principle for the design and operation of nuclear power plants. Despite its general appeal, defense-in-depth is not without its drawbacks, which include its potential for concealing the occurrence of hazardous states in a system, and more generally rendering the latter more opaque for its operators and managers, thus resulting in safety blind spots. This in turn translates into a shrinking of the time window available for operators to identify an unfolding hazardous condition or situation and intervene to abate it. To prevent this drawback from materializing, we propose in this work a novel safety principle termed "observability-in-depth". We characterize it as the set of provisions technical, operational, and organizational designed to enable the monitoring and identification of emerging hazardous conditions and accident pathogens in real-time and over different time-scales. Observability-in-depth also requires the monitoring of conditions of all safety barriers that implement defense-in-depth; and in so doing it supports sensemaking of identified hazardous conditions, and the understanding of potential accident sequences that might follow (how they can propagate). Observability-in-depth is thus an information-centric principle, and its importance in accident prevention is in the value of the information it provides and actions or safety interventions it spurs. We examine several "event reports" from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission database, which illustrate specific instances of violation of the observability-in-depth safety principle and the consequences that followed (e.g., unmonitored releases and loss of containments). We also revisit the Three Mile Island accident in light of the proposed principle, and identify causes and consequences of the lack of observability-in-depth related to this accident sequence. We illustrate both the benefits of adopting the observability-in-depth safety principle and the adverse consequences when this principle is violated or not implemented. This work constitutes a first step in the development of the observability-in-depth safety principle, and we hope this effort invites other researchers and safety professionals to further explore and develop this principle and its implementation.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.18-23
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• 2009

Due to dermal exposure to hazardous chemicals causing potential adverse health symptoms through skin absorption, dermal monitoring has had an important role in assessing such exposure. This paper overviews comparatively a number of studies of dermal monitoring with different methodologies such as surface monitoring, skin wiping, skin washing, adhesive methods and tape stripping, fluorescence and infrared spectroscopy, skin patches, pads and clothing, video exposure monitoring and dermal exposure assessment toolkits and models. However, there is a lack of information on the relationship between exposure levels and adverse health symptoms. Therefore, more specific strategies for dermal exposure monitoring should be developed and standardized with further development of biological and ocular monitoring.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.9-19
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• 2008

Work-related musculoskeletal hazards in a paper-making industry were examined to explore ergonomic interventions in a participatory approach for mitigating the hazards. Manual tasks occurred in this paper-making industry were quite different with ordinary assembly industry where individual workers perform certain specified tasks repetitively. Workers used to perform varieties of team-based irregular manual tasks to interact with the facilities. Among 96 manual jobs investigated, 44 potential hazardous jobs were screened during basic investigation phase and finally 16 hazardous jobs were identified by the detailed analysis phase. The major hazardous factors were awkward postures and excessive weights. Possible ways of intervention were developed, reviewed and proposed by an ergonomics team comprised of staffs and engineers from various departments and ergonomics specialist from outside the company. The proposed intervention ideas were evaluated and modified by the workers and union representatives in terms of usability and comfort. Implemented interventions including mechanization, automation, and improvement of tools and equipments provided fairly promising results.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.299-308
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• 2000

This study analyzed solid wastes generated from a school. The emission potential of hazardous pollutants generated from incineration of the school solid wastes (SSWs) was analyzed. Components of the SSWs were identified and the SSWs were classified into combustible and non-combustible wasts. The combustible wastes consisted of papers of 56.5^ plastics of 30.2% woods of 7.1% and fibers of 6.1% based on weight of the wastes. The moisture content and the ash content of the combustible wastes were 18~20% and 11~13% respectively. The combustible wastes of the SSWs were incinerated by using a small-scale incinerator. Fly and bottom ashes and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were collected from the incineration. Also the metal leaching experiments on the fly and bottom ashes were performed, In analysis of metals leached from the ashes the total amounts of metals leached in the acid solution (pH=3) were much greater than those in the neutral solution (pH=5.8~6.2) For the same amounts of the fly and bottom ashes the total amounts of metals leached from the fly ashes were much greater than those from the bottom ashes. The VOCs produced from incineration of the SSWs consisted of aromatics of 42.1% aliphatic alkenes of 26.3% oxidized forms of 17.3% and aliphatic alkanes of 14.3% In addition the considerable amounts of hazardous air pollutants (e.g benzene chloro-benzene and chloro-alkanes) and compounds (e. g, aliphatic alkenes) with high potential of ozone or photochemical smog formation were identified from the incineration experiment of the SSWs.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.726-734
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• 2020

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze and classify the characteristics of potential damage from hazardous chemical accidents in 229 administrative units in South Korea by reflecting the social and environmental characteristics of areas where chemical accidents can occur. Methods: A number of indicators were selected through preceding studies. Factor analysis was performed on selected indicators to derive factors, and cluster analysis was performed based on the factor scores. Results: As a result of the cluster analysis, 229 administrative units were divided into three clusters, and it was confirmed that each cluster had its own characteristics. Conclusions: The first cluster, "areas at risk of accident occurrence and spread of damage" was a type with a high potential for accident damage and a high density of hazardous facilities. The second cluster, "Urban infrastructure damage hazard areas" appeared to be a cluster with high urban development characteristics. Finally, the third cluster 'Urban and environmental damage hazard areas' appeared to be a cluster with an excellent natural environment. This study went further from the qualitative discussion related to existing chemical accidents to identify and respond to accident damage by reflecting the social and environmental characteristics of the region. Distinct from the previous studies related to the causes of accidents and the response system, it is meaningful to conduct empirical research focusing on the affected areas by analyzing the possibility of accident damage in reflection of the social and environmental characteristics of the community.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.79-94
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• 2016

In order to evaluate the contamination and health risk, levels of six hazardous elements i.e., Cr, Ni, Cu, As, Cd and Pb in soils of 12 different land-uses were measured. The average concentration of Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, As and Cd in soils were 267, 239, 206, 195, 58 and 16 mg/kg, respectively. Levels of each metal exceeded the environmental action level for soils, which could pose significant risk to human. The metal concentrations were subsequently used to establish hazard indices (for adults and children) where the 5th and 95th percentile values were used to derive the hazard index through different exposure pathways (ingestion, dermal contact and inhalation). Considering the total exposure through each of the three pathways, the hazard index elucidates that there was a potency of non-cancer risk at most of the sites for both the adults and children. The findings of this study suggested that different land-use soils were severely contaminated with hazardous elements and attention is needed on the potential health risks to the exposed inhabitants.