• Industry Promotion Research
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.37-44
• /
• 2024

This study selected the worst-case scenario for fireball and vapor cloud explosion (VCE) of a styrene monomer storage tank installed in a petrochemical production plant and performed damage prediction and accident impact analysis. The range of influence of radiant heat and overpressure due to fireball and vapor VCE during the abnormal polymerization reaction of styrene monomer, the main component of the mixed residue oil storage tank, was quantitatively analyzed by applying the e-CA accident damage prediction program. The damage impact areas of radiant heat and explosion overpressure are analyzed to have a maximum radius of 1,150m and 626m, respectively. People within 1,150m of radiant heat of 4kW/m2 may have their skin swell when exposed to it for 20 seconds. In buildings within 626m, where an explosion overpressure of 21kPa is applied, steel structures may be damaged and separated from the foundation, and people may suffer physical injuries. In the event of a fire, explosion or leak, determine the risk standards such as the degree of risk and acceptability to workers in the work place, nearby residents, or surrounding facilities due to radiant heat or overpressure, identify the hazards and risks of the materials handled, and establish an emergency response system. It is expected that it will be helpful in establishing measures to minimize damage to workplaces through improvement and investment activities.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.99-103
• /
• 2022

Background: Firefighters may experience high environmental temperatures or carry out intensive physical tasks, or both, which leads to increased core body temperature and risk of fatalities. Hence there is a need to remotely and non-invasively monitor core body temperature. Methods: Estimated (heart rate algorithm) and actual core body temperature (ingested telemetric pill) measures were collected simultaneously for comparison during training exercises on 44 firefighter volunteers. Results: Prediction of core body temperature varied, with no specific identifiable pattern between the algorithm values and directly measured body core temperatures. Group agreement of Lin's Concordance of 0.74 (95% Upper 0.75, lower CI 0.73), was deemed poor. Conclusion: From individual agreement data Lin's Concordance was variable (Min 0.11, CI 0.13-0.01; Max 0.83, CI 0.86-0.80), indicating that the heart rate algorithm approach was not suitable for core body temperature monitoring in this population group, especially at the higher more critical core body temperatures seen.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.22-32
• /
• 2019

On offshore platforms, oil and gas leaks are apt to be the initial events of major accidents that may result in significant loss of life and property damage. To prevent accidents induced by leakage, it is vital to perform a case-specific and accurate risk assessment. This paper presents an integrated method of Ddynamic Qquantitative Rrisk Aassessment (DQRA)-using the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-Bayesian Network (BN)-for evaluation of the system vulnerabilities and prediction of the occurrence probabilities of accidents induced by leakage. In the method, three-level indicators are established to identify factors, events, and subsystems that may lead to leakage, fire, and explosion. The critical indicators that directly influence the evolution of risk are identified using DEMATEL. Then, a sequential model is developed to describe the escalation of initial events using an Event Tree (ET), which is converted into a BN to calculate the posterior probabilities of indicators. Using the newly introduced accident precursor data, the failure probabilities of safety barriers and basic factors, and the occurrence probabilities of different consequences can be updated using the BN. The proposed method overcomes the limitations of traditional methods that cannot effectively utilize the operational data of platforms. This work shows trends of accident risks over time and provides useful information for risk control of floating marine platforms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2022

Most factories deal with toxic or flammable chemicals in their industrial processes. These hazardous substances pose a risk of leakage due to accidents, such as fire and explosion. In the event of chemical release, massive casualties and property damage can result; hence, quantitative risk prediction and assessment are necessary. Several methods are available for evaluating chemical dispersion in the atmosphere, and most analyses are considered neutral in dispersion models and under far-field wind condition. The foregoing assumption renders a model valid only after a considerable time has elapsed from the moment chemicals are released or dispersed from a source. Hence, an initial dispersion model is required to assess risk quantitatively and predict the extent of damage because the most dangerous locations are those near a leak source. In this study, the dispersion model for initial consequence analysis was developed with three-dimensional unsteady advective diffusion equation. In this expression, instantaneous leakage is assumed as a puff, and wind velocity is considered as a coordinate transform in the solution. To minimize the buoyant force, ethane is used as leaked fuel, and two different diffusion coefficients are introduced. The calculated concentration field with a molecular diffusion coefficient shows a moving circular iso-line in the horizontal plane. The maximum concentration decreases as time progresses and distance increases. In the case of using a coefficient for turbulent diffusion, the dispersion along the wind velocity direction is enhanced, and an elliptic iso-contour line is found. The result yielded by a widely used commercial program, ALOHA, was compared with the end point of the lower explosion limit. In the future, we plan to build a more accurate and general initial risk assessment model by considering the turbulence diffusion and buoyancy effect on dispersion.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.135-147
• /
• 2015

Recent underground common utility tunnels are underground facilities for jointly accommodating more than 2 kinds of air-conditioning and heating facilities, vacuum dust collector, information processing cables as well as electricity, telecommunications, waterworks, city gas, sewerage system required when citizens live their daily lives and facilities responsible for the central function of the country but it is difficult to cope with fire accidents quickly and hard to enter into common utility tunnels to extinguish a fire due to toxic gases and smoke generated when various cables are burnt. Thus, in the event of a fire, not only the nerve center of the country is paralyzed such as significant property damage and loss of communication etc. but citizen inconveniences are caused. Therefore, noticing that most fires break out by a short circuit due to electrical works and degradation contact due to combustible cables as the main causes of fires in domestic and foreign common utility tunnels fire cases that have occurred so far, the purpose of this paper is to scientifically analyze the behavior of a fire by producing the model of actual common utility tunnels and reproducing the fire. A fire experiment was conducted in a state that line type fixed temperature detector, fire door, connection deluge set and ventilation equipment are installed in underground common utility tunnels and transmission power distribution cables are coated with fire proof paints in a certain section and heating pipes are fire proof covered. As a result, in the case of Type II, the maximum temperature was measured as $932^{\circ}C$ and line type fixed temperature detector displayed the fire location exactly in the receiver at a constant temperature. And transmission power distribution cables painted with fire proof paints in a certain section, the case of Type III, were found not to be fire resistant and fire proof covered heating pipes to be fire resistant for about 30 minutes. Also, fire simulation was carried out by entering fire load during a real fire test and as a result, the maximum temperature is $943^{\circ}C$, almost identical with $932^{\circ}C$ during a real fire test. Therefore, it is considered that fire behaviour can be predicted by conducting fire simulation only with common utility tunnels fire load and result values of heat release rate, height of the smoke layer, concentration of O2, CO, CO2 etc. obtained by simulation are determined to be applied as the values during a real fire experiment. In the future, it is expected that more reliable information on domestic underground common utility tunnels fire accidents can be provided and it will contribute to construction and maintenance repair effectively and systematically by analyzing and accumulating experimental data on domestic underground common utility tunnels fire accidents built in this study and fire cases continuously every year and complementing laws and regulations and administration manuals etc.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.107-115
• /
• 2024

This study assesses forest fire susceptibility in Gangwon-do, South Korea, which hosts the largest forested area in the nation and constitutes ~21% of the country's forested land. With 81% of its terrain forested, Gangwon-do is particularly susceptible to wildfires, as evidenced by the fact that seven out of the ten most extensive wildfires in Korea have occurred in this region, with significant ecological and economic implications. Here, we analyze 480 historical wildfire occurrences in Gangwon-do between 2003 and 2019 using 17 predictor variables of wildfire occurrence. We utilized three machine learning algorithms—random forest, logistic regression, and support vector machine—to construct wildfire susceptibility prediction models and identify the best-performing model for Gangwon-do. Forest and soil map data were integrated as important indicators of wildfire susceptibility and enhanced the precision of the three models in identifying areas at high risk of wildfires. Of the three models examined, the random forest model showed the best predictive performance, with an area-under-the-curve value of 0.936. The findings of this study, especially the maps generated by the models, are expected to offer important guidance to local governments in formulating effective management and conservation strategies. These strategies aim to ensure the sustainable preservation of forest resources and to enhance the well-being of communities situated in areas adjacent to forests. Furthermore, the outcomes of this study are anticipated to contribute to the safeguarding of forest resources and biodiversity and to the development of comprehensive plans for forest resource protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental management.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.17-27
• /
• 2021

In this study, classification models were built using machine learning techniques that can classify the soil creep risk into three classes from A to C (A: risk, B: moderate, C: good). A total of six machine learning techniques were used: K-Nearest Neighbor, Support Vector Machine, Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting and then their classification accuracy was analyzed using the nationwide soil creep field survey data in 2019 and 2020. As a result of classification accuracy analysis, all six methods showed excellent accuracy of 0.9 or more. The methods where numerical data were applied for data training showed better performance than the methods based on character data of field survey evaluation table. Moreover, the methods learned with the data group (R1~R4) reflecting the expert opinion had higher accuracy than the field survey evaluation score data group (C1~C4). The machine learning can be used as a tool for prediction of soil creep if high-quality data are continuously secured and updated in the future.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.9-15
• /
• 2019

The flash points of DMF based organic solvent mixtures used in the synthetic leather manufacturing process were measured. The test group was composed of seven types of solvent mixtures, which included DMF, toluene, and MEK. Each flash point was tested according to the international standard test methods of KS M 2010. The flash points were then predicted using some prediction models and compared with the measured data. From the analysis results, the binary mixtures with a mole ratio of less than approximately 0.7 showed that the measured values were under 25 ℃. This showed that the expectation for the flammable risk lowering effects due to the mixing of high flash point materials was reduced. In addition, the predicted values were evaluated using the average absolute deviation (A.A.D). The results showed that the Le Chatelier's models had an "A.A.D" of 1.95 ℃ and were the closest to the measured values.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.36-40
• /
• 2022

Recently, the biggest topic in the industry is the area of industrial safety and health management. Since city gas is flammable gas and has a high risk of fire and explosion, much effort is required to prevent serious industrial and citizenry disasters. As part of city gas safety management, this study attempted to quantitatively predict the scope and degree of damage in the event of an explosion accident caused by city gas leakage through the Consequence Analysis. As a result, there was a difference in the accident result value according to various leakage conditions such as pressure and weather conditions. Through this study, a scenario of explosion due to city gas leakage will be prepared when performing city gas safety management work and used to prepare more effective accident prevention and emergency action plans.

• Research in Plant Disease
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.182-192
• /
• 2018

Since fire blight (Erwinia amylovora) firstly broke out at mid-Korea in 2015, it is necessary to investigate potential spread of the invasive pathogen. To speculate environmental factors of fireblight epidemic based on disease triangle, a fire blight predicting program, MARYBLYT, was run with the measured meteorological data in 2014-2017 and the projecting future data under RCP8.5 scenario for 2020-2100. After calculating blossom period of Singo pear from phenology, MARYBLYT was run for blossom blight during the blossom period. MARYBLYT warned "Infection" blossom blight in 2014-15 at Anseong and Cheonan as well as Pyungtak and Asan. In addition, it warned "Infection" in 2016-17 at Naju. More than 80% of Korean areas were covered "Infection" or "High", therefore Korea was suitable for fire blight recently. Blossom blight for 2020-2100 was predicted to be highly fluctuate depending on the year. For 80 years of the future, 20 years were serious with "Infection" covered more than 50% of areas in Korea, whereas 8 years were not serious covered less than 10%. By comparisons between 50% and 10% of the year, temperature and amount of precipitation were significantly different. The results of this study are informative for policy makers to manage the alien pathogen.