Workplace accidents are common while working at elevations. Thus, various safety measures such as safety handrails and horizontal safety nets are implemented to prevent falls. The minimum safety measure is the lifeline installation. However, because its standards have not been clearly established, it is often misused, resulting in inappropriate knot methods that increase the chance of accidents while working at elevations. Therefore, clarifying the appropriate usage methods or criteria for the various lifelines is required in the field. This study proposed an appropriate installation method by experimentally and numerically evaluating the change in strength according to the fixed knot lifeline method. In addition, three knot methods were specified for each material. The results obtained are expected to contribute to lessening falls through the establishment of lifeline installation standards and the development of appropriate parts.

The analysis of the causes of accidents in workplaces where machines and tools are used is essential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of safety prevention policies in places of employment in Korea. The causes of workplace accidents are not fully understood mainly due to difficulties in analyzing available descriptive information. This study focuses on the automated accident cause analysis in workplaces based on the accident abstracts found in industrial accident reports written in an unstructured descriptive format. The method proposed in this paper is based on text data mining and uses the keyword search function of Excel software to automate the analysis. The analysis results indicate that the primary reason for the frequency of accidents is related to technical aspects at a stage in which dangerous situations occur in the workplace. Accidents due to managerial causes are typically observed when danger exists in the workplace; however, managerial actions play a more important role in reducing accident severity. A small company tends to use unsafe machines and devices, leading to further accidents due to technical causes, whereas managerial causes are more conspicuous as the company grows. To preclude the occurrence of accidents due to inadequate knowledge, the implementation of safety management and the provision of safety education to elderly workers at the early stage of their employment are particularly important for small companies with less than 100 workers.

This study aims to provide a fundamental material for identifying fire and no-fire signals using the detection signal characteristics of IoT-based fire-detection systems. Unlike analog automatic fire-detection equipment, IoT-based fire-detection systems employ wireless digital communication and are connected to a server. If a detection signal exceeds a threshold value, the measured values are saved to a server within seconds. This study was conducted with the detection data saved from seven fire accidents that took place in traditional markets from 2020 to 2021, in addition to 233 fire alarm data that have been saved in the K institute from 2016 to 2020. The saved values demonstrated variable and continuous VC-Signals. Additionally, we discovered that the detection signals of two fire accidents in the K institution had a VC-Signal. In the 233 fire alarms that took place over the span of 5 years, 31% of smoke alarms and 30% of temperature alarms demonstrated a VC-Signal. Therefore, if we selectively recognize VC-Signals as fire signals, we can reduce about 70% of false alarms.

Construction site fatalities accounted for 51.9% of the total fatalities recorded in 2020. It is known that the safety leadership of site managers is important in reducing occupational accidents at construction sites. According to previous domestic and foreign studies, the safety leadership role of managers has significant effects on the safety behavior and safety culture of workers. Therefore, in this study, we identified the factors affecting organizational trust, which are known to be prerequisites for building a safety culture, and sought ways to enhance organizational trust. In this study, measurement data were collected using a self-report questionnaire. A total of 4,373 copies were distributed to workers and managers of business partners who are highly likely to be exposed to occupational injuries, and 3,873 copies were used as final data for analysis, excluding insincere responses and non-responses. As a result of the study, safety leadership was found to have a positive (+) effect on organizational trust, and communication and motivation moderated the relationship between safety leadership and organizational trust. Therefore, for safety leadership to have a positive effect on organizational trust at construction sites, it is imperative that leadership participation includes communication and motivational efforts.

This study analyzed the smart construction safety cost included in safety management plans that are approved before construction. Specifically, it refers to the cost incurred in constructing and operating a safety management system using wireless communication and facilities. Based on the obtained statistical results, an activation policy for the inclusion of the smart construction safety cost in building safety management plans was proposed. The smart construction safety cost must be included in the safety management cost; notably, this is mandated by the Construction Technology Promotion Act. However, there are some problems with the inclusion of smart construction safety costs. To analyze the problems encountered when calculating the smart construction safety cost and including it in safety management plans, in this study, statistical analysis was performed using the data of 1,334 safety management plans received at the Construction Safety Management Integrated Information (CSI) from June to August 2021. The results show that only 50.7% of the safety management plans included the smart construction safety cost although the current law mandates 100% inclusion of these costs. Thus, it is apparent that the smart construction safety costs are only included in a low proportion of sites. In addition, the calculated smart construction safety costs were shown to have a small correlation with the construction cost; moreover, they appeared to be distributed at a constant cost level. In this context, it is believed that perfunctory cost calculations were performed at most sites since the effect of the construction cost on the smart construction safety cost was negligible. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the inclusion of smart construction safety costs by strengthening the authorization process of the approval institute of safety management plans. In addition, institutional support, such as guidelines that promote the calculation and inclusion of appropriate smart construction safety costs according to the characteristics of sites, are needed.

This paper focuses on a recently proposed asymmetric base-isolation coupling control system (ABiCS) for the vibration control of adjacent twin buildings. The ABiCS consists of inter-story diagonal dampers, a connecting damper between the two buildings, and a seismic isolation device at the base floor of one building. To investigate the control characteristics of ABiCS, a parametric study was performed by numerically simulating the 20-story twin buildings. In the parametric study, the control capacities of the inter-story diagonal dampers, connecting damper, and seismic isolation device were considered as varying parameters. The parametric study results indicate that the connecting damper between the two buildings reduces the responses of both buildings only at optimal or near-optimal capacity. In addition, adjusting the stiffness of the base isolation is found to be the most effective method for improving seismic performance and achieving cost-effectiveness. Accordingly, we presented a scenario-based performance improvement approach in which reducing the stiffness of the base isolation device could be an effective technique to improve the seismic performance of both buildings. However, note that checking the maximum allowable displacement of the base isolation device is essential.

Conventionally, all the unsafe acts by human beings in relation to industrial accidents have been regarded as unintentional human errors. Exceptionally, however, in the cases with fatalities, seriously injured workers, and/or losses that evoked social issues, attention was paid to violating related laws and regulations for finding out some people to be prosecuted and given judicial punishments. As Heinrich stated, injury or loss in an accident is quite a random variable, so it can be unfair to utilize it as a criterion for prosecution or punishment. The present study was conducted to comprehend how categorizing intentional violations in unsafe acts might disrupt conventional conclusions about the industrial accident process. It was also intended to seek out the right direction for countermeasures by examining unsafe acts comprehensively rather than limiting the analysis to human errors only. In an analysis of 150 industrial accident cases that caused fatalities and featured relatively clear accident scenarios, the results showed that only 36.0% (54 cases) of the workers recognized the situation they confronted as risky, out of which 29.6% (16 cases) thought of the risk as trivial. In addition, even when the risks were recognized, most workers attempted to solve the hazardous situations in ways that violated rules or regulations. If analyzed with a focus on human errors, accidents can be attributed to personal deviations. However, if considered with an emphasis on safety rules or regulations, the focus will naturally move to the question of whether the workers intentionally violated them or not. As a consequence, failure of managerial efforts may be highlighted. Therefore, it was concluded that management should consider unsafe acts comprehensively, with violations included in principle, during accident investigations and the development of countermeasures to prevent future accidents.

The use rate of sports facilities in Korea is increasing every year, which means that accidents are also increasing. However, it is difficult to determine the level of safety management necessary to prevent accidents because there are no measurement tools to evaluate such management of sports facilities. Accordingly, in this study, tools and models to evaluate the safety management level of public sports facilities were developed based on public company management evaluation guidelines and the EFQM Excellence Model. A comparative analysis of the proposed tools and models between local governments showed no difference in awareness of safety management by group. This means that active safety management activities are needed to improve the low level of interest in safety of public sports facilities. We hope that this model will be widely used for the safety management of public sports facilities and to identify improvements and priorities in safety management.

The purpose of this study is to improve the National Fire Mobilization Plan. This plan is a national-level comprehensive response system aimed to compensate for scarce firefighting resources and minimize damage from large-scale disasters that exceed the response limits of city and province firefighting forces. As such, relevant literature and domestic and foreign firefighting mobilization standards were reviewed, and simulations of firefighting mobilization were performed using the QGIS program to compare and analyze cases. Results showed that, as opposed to the current method of issuing mobilization orders by dividing resources according to city and province, recognizing the entire country as a single entity and prioritizing the mobilization of adjacent firefighting resources is more effective in terms of minimizing time and distance and more quickly securing resources. Regarding national firefighting mobilization, recognizing the country's firefighting resources as a whole will allow adjacent firefighting resources to be mobilized with priority. However, the mobilization-related limits of each region need to be set to respond to local disasters. Once the scale of mobilization is determined, a system that can quickly calculate how to mobilize firefighting resources based on location and distance can be established. Additionally, it is necessary to create an integrated management system so the central government can directly organize and mobilize local firefighting resources.

The annual statistics on fall fatality consistently show the dangers of working at height. The "Occupational Safety and Health Act" specifies legal restrictions on work at height using a scaffold. However, there are different classes of work at height, and some rely only on ropes. This study proposes education, training, and institutionalization of the "rope access work system." In brief, it was concluded that accurate instruction on the knot method and the setting of some standards were important. For this, the use of an integrated work chair harness equipment was suggested.