• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.485-501
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• 2023

Objectives: The Ministry of Employment and Labor has revised the articles regarding management of the thermal environment in the workplace. Currently, two types of regulations exist together with indoor workplaces as the scope of application. It appears that the time has come to discuss regulations. In this study, we aim to identify the feasibility of and problems with the current system through a comparative legal review of workplace thermal environment management laws from around the world. We suggest directions for improving South Korea's workplace thermal environment management laws. Methods: For the several selected countries, we analyzed the classification and content of obligations stipulated for the thermal environment, the presence or absence of specific measures for thermal environment management, legal status and content, and the scope of application of thermal environment provisions and measures. The investigated content was classified according to Zweigelt-Kotz's legal theory. Results: In some countries, employers' obligations for regulating the thermal environment are broadly divided into two types: results and actions. The scope of application of provisions and measures on the thermal environment was extensive, with most of the selected countries targeting general workplaces. Conclusions: In the case of South Korea, restricting and classifying target workplaces and imposing separate obligations to manage a workplace thermal environment goes against global practices, and stipulating legal orders and separate action obligations in guidelines does not conform to the characteristics of South Korea's legal system, meaning that improvement is needed.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.81-90
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• 2017

This study was conducted to investigate the thermal environment status of nursery rooms in workplace daycare centers in Jeju and propose measures to improve their indoor physical thermal environment. For this purpose, measurements were performed in the winter indoor physical environment of 51 nursery rooms in 11 workplace daycare centers and a psychological evaluation survey on the thermal environment of nursery rooms was conducted for 70 nursery teachers. The investigation was carried out over 11 days in January 2017. The results are as follow. The average indoor temperature of the nursery rooms was $21.3^{\circ}C$($18.7-23.8^{\circ}C$) and the indoor temperatures of 47 nursery rooms (92.9%) were higher than the environmental hygiene management standard for domestic school facilities ($18-20^{\circ}C$). The average relative humidity was 33.9% (16.4-56.0%), and 37 nursery rooms (86.3%) showed a lower average relative humidity than the standard (40-70%). The average absolute humidity was $9.1g/m^3$ ($4.7-13.6g/m^3$), which was lower than the standard for preventing influenza ($10g/m^3$). When the indoor temperature and humidity of the nursery rooms were compared with international standards, it was found that 85% or more of the 51 nursery rooms maintained appropriate indoor temperatures, but 40-50% of the nursery rooms maintained a low humidity condition. Therefore, they need to pay attention to maintaining the appropriate humidity of the nursery room to keep the children healthy. The average indoor temperature of the nursery rooms showed a weak negative correlation with the average relative humidity. The indoor temperature had a significant effect on the relative humidity: a higher indoor temperature resulted in lower relative humidity. Regarding the fluctuations in the average indoor temperature of the nursery rooms during the day, in daycare centers that used floor heating, the indoor temperature gradually increased form the morning to the afternoon and tended to decrease during lunch time and the morning and afternoon snack times, due to ventilation. The daycare centers that used both floor heating and ceiling-type air conditioners showed a higher indoor temperature and greater fluctuations in temperature compared to the daycare centers that used floor heating only. In the survey results, the average value of the whole body thermal sensation was 3.0 (neutral): 32 respondents (62.7%) answered, "Neutral", Which was the largest number, followed by 21 respondents (30%) who answered, "Slightly hot" and 17 respondents (24.2%) who answered, "Slightly cold." Twenty-nine respondents answered, "Slightly dry," which was the largest number, followed by 28 respondents (54.9%) who answered, "Neutral" and 10 respondents (19.6%) who answered, "Dry." The total number of respondents who answered, "Slightly dry" or "Dry" was large at 39 (56.4%), which suggests the need for indoor environment management to prevent a low-humidity environment. To summarize the above results about the thermal environment of nursery rooms, as the indoor temperature increased, the relative humidity decreased. This suggests the effect of room temperature on the indoor relative humidity; however, frequent ventilations also greatly decrease the relative humidity. Therefore, the ventilation method and the usage of air conditioning systems need to be re-examined.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.166-175
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• 2014

In this study, the thermal environment in a large scale coal mine located in Taebaek, Gangwondo was assessed by a field survey. In order to estimate the thermal environment, various heat stress indices such as WBGT, HSI, ESI, KATA index and effective temperature were investigated. Correlation analysis was also conducted. It was found that the thermal environment in most workplace was high. In particular, the correlation coefficient between HSI reflected in physiological fatigue characteristic and the maximum sweat evaporation heat was -0.834. This shows that the correlation coefficient have the most influence on HSI index. The factor which has the most influence on the maximum sweat evaporation heat is velocity of air. The thermal environment of high-depth coal mines is likely to be improved by installing a structure that enables the maximum prevention of extended digging, air doors, or the leakage of the inflow of air in the first shaft.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.195-202
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• 2010

Cooling air-conditioning of APC (Agricultural Products processing Center) workplace is important to improve the working environment in the summer season. As existing cooling systems for air-conditioning of whole workplace are inefficient because of their high equipment operating costs, relatively inexpensive cooling system is required. The objectives of this study were to simulate the thermal flow fields in APC workplace having the positive and negative pressure type fan and pad systems and spot cooling system by using CFD software (FLUENT, 6.2) and estimate the cooling effectiveness of respective cooling systems. The results showed that the negative pressure type fan and pad system was inappropriate for the present APC workplace because of excessive outside air influx from open gateway and the positive pressure type fan and pad system created relatively low temperature field but non-uniform velocity field at worker positions. The spot cooling system could supply cool air to worker positions with relatively constant air velocity and temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.918-921
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• 2001

In grinding process, the heat of $1200^{\circ}$~$1500^{\circ}$ on the grinding area between grinding wheel and workpiece is generated. It decreases the surface integrity of workpiece and causes the thermal damages such as the deformed layer, residual stress and grinding burn. Generally coolant is widely used for preventing the heat generation on the grinding area, but it deteriorates the working condition by polluting the atmosphere of workplace and in the end pollutes the environment. The grinding methods using the compressed cold air and mist are the cooling methods to substitute conventional coolant. They can decrease the environmental pollution through not using coolant any more or minimizing it. In this study, the cooling effects of grinding methods using the compressed cold air and mist have been investigated. The grinding system equipped with the water bathe and mist spray nozzle was developed. The energy partition to workpiece through measuring the temperature on the workpiece surface was calculated. The surface integrity of workpiece and thermal damage like the deformed layer were analyzed.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.2 no.5
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• pp.411-415
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• 2000

To be able to work safely and efficiency, the Threshold Limit Values (TLV) for work in the heat are widely used. Since these TLV are only applicable to workers in regular clothing, TLV should be adjusted when applied to the asbestos removal workers who wear extra impermeable protective clothing. Although abbreviated guidelines for heat stress exposure have been proposed, literature advocating their use in the asbestos removal industry is limited. Therefore, we planed a survey to evaluate the workload of asbestos abatement workers in summer, and an experiment with climatic chambers to evaluate the effects of resting in a cool environment between work periods. From these studies, we got following conclusions. There is a high risk of suffering from heat illness by asbestos abatement work in summer in Japan. It is proposed to create a cool room inside the workplace of asbestos abatement work to reduce thermal stress.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.155-161
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• 2000

Recently, environmental pollution has become a big problem in industry and many researches have been done in order to preserve the environment. In the grinding process, the coolant has great influence on environment. It contains several chemicals(sulfur, phosphorus and chlorine) to improve the grinding efficiency. If these additives go into the workplace atmosphere, it is harmful for workers. It can also cause the environment pollution. Because of these reasons many studies have been done to minimize the amount of coolant. However the small amount of coolant can cause the thermal defect on the ground surface layer. This study forced the effects of the compressed cold air when the spindle shaft materials(SCM4 & SCM21) were cylindrical ground with WA wheel. The compressed cold air was used as the coolant and grinding performance was compared with that of the conventional grinding fluids(emulsion). Many experiments were carried out with these two cooling materials. The surface roughness, residual stress, and roundness were measured for the cylindrical grinding. The test results showed that the compressed cold air was very useful as the cooling materials for grinding process. It was also efficient to minimize the thermal defects of workpiece and could also play a role in solving environmental pollution.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.1 s.52
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• pp.1-14
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• 1996

To evaluate the health risk of the workplace environment of a general hospital toward the hospital workers, a questionnaire survey on the perception of risk at the workplace environment and environmental measurements at 27 locations with 240 workers in the hospital were made from October 25th, 1993 to October 30th, 1994. The results were as follows ; 1. By the environmental measurements, 86 workers(36%) were found to be exposed to poor or harmful degree of general illumination, 193 workers(80%) were exposed to poor or harmful local illumination, 34 workers(14%) were exposed to poor or harmful degree of thermal condition and 180 workers(75%) were exposed to poor or harmful noise level, but nobody was exposed to poor or harmful dust and toluene concentration. Also nobody was exposed to poor or harmful level of radiation or anticancer/antibiotic agents. 2. The subjective perceptions on the environmental conditions felt by the workers were different from the objective findings by the environmental measurements. The workers underscored the poor illumination state and overscored the dust concentrations. Also workers oversensitized about the thermal condition, the noise level, the radiation level, the toluene concentration and anticancer/antibiotic agents 3. The sources of noise were the dialogue(179 workers) and the office instruments(131 workers). The sources of dust came from the clothes(108 workers) and the building materials(79 workers). 4. The questionnaire survey showed that the 28 workers were exposed to poor or harmful level of the antibiotics, 10 workers to alkali or acid and 6 workers to drug dust in the pharmacy but the above findings could not be proved by the environmental measurements.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.96-105
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• 1995

The better industry develops, the more spaces need but in the limited area. Most building become larger and more complicated if the more spaces need in the constant area. And this leads to do underground work in long period generally six(6) months for 6 basement stories due to the selection of TOP DOWN technique. Working environment in this underground area can be problems and should not be overlooked, because air quality in underground spaces become quickly worse. Recently, department name to control construction safety has been changed to ENVIRONMENT & SAFETY TEAM from SAFETY TEAM. This means that it is very important to control against environmental condition at site so much. Overall construction work as well as underground work should conform to the requirement of working environment, particularly against inhabitants around the construction area. Strut protection, one of earth protection method, in case to 40m long strut may become weaker due to thermal stress or its longitudinally compressive strain and the another one, earth anchor protection may not be applied to the site In case of encroaching on vertical underground borderline because of regulation to prohibit it. It is necessary that TOP DOWN technique should be introduced in order to solve the external and internal problem of the site such as difficulty level of the work, potential danger with excavating depth, and shortening workperiod. It is needed that improving way of working condition should be shown and simplified computer simulation program should be also provided for checking pollution level & ventilation, excluding of lighting problem here. Results measured with conformance to the Regulation for Working Environment Measurement, enforced by Ministry of Labor have been applied to the computer program developed here. Sample air taken at unit workplace which was considered as exposing condition of pollutant at breathing point and within a range of behavior of the workers, Identified exposing group in underground work, using Moded Flow Life Finally, three types of ventilation system, type I with blower & ventilator, type II natural supply with mechanical ventilation system, and type I mechanical ventilation with Drivent Fan Unit System are selected for this study.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.230-246
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• 2023

Objectives: The climate crisis has arrived and heat-related illnesses are increasing. It is necessary to discover new high-heat risk industries and understand the environment . It is also necessary to prioritize risks of industries that have not been included in the management target to date. The study was intended to monitor and evaluate the thermal risk of high-priority workplaces. Methods: A prioritization method was developed based on five factors: occurrence of and death due to heat-related illnesses, work environment monitoring, indoor work rate, small heat source, and limited heat dissipation. it, was applied to industrial accidents caused by heat-related illnesses. Wet bulb temperature index and apparent temperature were measured in July and August at 24 workplaces in seven industries and assessed for thermal risk. Results: The wet bulb temperature index was in the range of 23.8~31.9℃, and exposure limits were exceeded in the growing of crops, food services activities and accommodation, and building construction. The apparent temperature was in the range of 26.8~36.7℃, and exceeded the temperature standard for issuing heatwave warnings in growing of crops, food services activities and accommodation, warehousing, welding, and building construction. Both temperature index in growing of crops and building construction were higher than the outside air temperature. Conclusions: In the workplace, risks in industries that have not be controlled and recognized through existing systems was identified. it is necessary to provide break times according to the work-rest time ratio required during dangerous time period.