• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.69-77
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• 2020

After the Fukushima Daiichi accidents, public concerns on nuclear safety and the corresponding burden of nuclear power plant licensees are increasing. In order to secure public trust and enhance the rationality of current safety regulation, we develop a risk-informed decision making (RIDM) framework for the Korean regulatory body. By analyzing all the regulatory activities for nuclear power plants in Korea, eight action items are selected for RIDM implementation, with appropriate procedures developed for each. For two items in particular - the accident sequence precursor analysis (ASPA) and the significance determination process (SDP) - two customized risk evaluation software has been developed for field inspectors and probabilistic safety assessment experts, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed RIDM framework is demonstrated by applying the ASPA procedure to 35 unplanned scrams and the SDP to 24 findings from periodic inspections.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 2024

Fishing is considered one of the most dangerous industries alongside mining that needs further efforts to improve safety. In this study, we have investigated safety management of the gillnet fishing industry in South Korea through identifying safety level and classifying common accident types from the statements of accident com-pensation insurance payments for the last 5 years (2016-2020). There were in total 3,895 accidents and 159 fatalities with an average accident frequency of 5.34 × 10^-2 per year per fisher and an average fatality of 2.18 × 10^-3 fishers per year. We have also identified that 62.4% of the accidents occurred during Fishing (FS), and the most common and the most severe accident type is Slips and Trips (ST) and Other (OT) marine accidents such as collision and capsizing, respectively. The hand was most frequently injured. Finally, the risk assessment indicated that most of the accident types of gillnet fishing in South Korea have unacceptable levels of risks, and it is urgent to implement improved safety measures to reduce accidents during gillnet fishing operation. The findings of this study are expected to provide valuable data to create a safer working environment for fishers working on gillnet fishing vessels.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.48-54
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• 2016

The prediction of various emissions from coal combustion is an important subject of researchers and engineers because of environmental consideration. Therefore, the development of the models for predicting pollutants very fast has received much attention from international research community, especially in the field of safety assessment. In this work, response surface method was introduced as a design of experiment, and the database for RSM was set with the numerical simulation of a drop tube furnace (DTF) to predict the spatial distribution of pollutant concentrations as well as final ones. The distribution of carbon dioxide in DTF was assumed to have Boltzman function, and the resulted function with parameters of a high $R^2$ value facilitates predicting an accurate distribution of $CO_2$. However, CO distribution had a difference near peak concentration when Gaussian function was introduced to simulate the CO distribution. It might be mainly due to the anti-symmetry of the CO concentration in DTF, and hence Extreme function was used to permit the asymmetry. The application of Extreme function enhanced the regression accuracy of parameters and the prediction was in a fairly good agreement with the new experiments. These results promise the wide use of statistical models for the quantitative safety assessment.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.375-379
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• 2011

Control Banding (CB) strategies to prevent work-related illness and injury for 2.5 billion workers without access to health and safety professionals has grown exponentially this last decade. CB originates from the pharmaceutical industry to control active pharmaceutical ingredients without a complete toxicological basis and therefore no occupational exposure limits. CB applications have broadened into chemicals in general - including new emerging risks like nanomaterials and recently into ergonomics and injury prevention. CB is an action-oriented qualitative risk assessment strategy offering solutions and control measures to users through "toolkits". Chemical CB toolkits are user-friendly approaches used to achieve workplace controls in the absence of firm toxicological and quantitative exposure information. The model (technical) validation of these toolkits is well described, however firm operational analyses (implementation aspects) are lacking. Consequentially, it is often not known if toolkit use leads to successful interventions at individual workplaces. This might lead to virtual safe workplaces without knowing if workers are truly protected. Upcoming international strategies from the World Health Organization Collaborating Centers request assistance in developing and evaluating action-oriented procedures for workplace risk assessment and control. It is expected that to fulfill this strategy's goals, CB approaches will continue its important growth in protecting workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.440-450
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aims to investigate whether working environment measurement institutions(WEMIs) are conducting safety and health education, risk assessment, and oversight of special management materials, and whether working environment measurement and special medical examinations are being conducted as prescribed in the Occupational Safety and Health Act(OSHA). Methods: In of February 2021, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to 33 WMEIs registered with the Ministry of Employment and Labor(MoEL) in Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do Province. The responses were collected and then analyzed. Results: The findings show that 5 WEMIs(15%) complied fully with OSHA. Risk assessment was conducted by 13 WMEIs(39%) and safety education by 11 WMEIs(33%). Eighteen WMEIs(55%) conducted working environment measurement, and 29 WMEIs(88%) conducted special medical examinations. The implementation rate of the risk assessment in the health industry(85%) was higher than the one in the special technology industry(11%)(p<0.05). The implementation rate of the special medical examination in the examiners(54%) was not as high as the one in the analysts(91%)(p<0.05). Conclusions: The MoEL needs to check whether basic OSHA requirements are being observed during regular inspections by WEMIs. These findings indicate that it is necessary to prepare a plan to improve the rate of compliance with OSHA regulations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.13-21
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• 2019

Leakage accidents in businesses dealing with hazardous chemicals can have a great impact on the workers inside the workplace, as well as residents outside the workplace. In fact, there were cases where hazardous chemicals leaked from many businesses. As a result, the Chemicals Control Act(CCA) was enacted in 2015, the Ministry of Environment introduced an Off-site Risk Assessment(ORA). The purpose of the ORA is to secure safety from the installation of the design of the workplace facilities so that chemical accidents of hazardous chemical handling facilities do not cause human or physical damage outside the workplace. In general, the ORA qualitatively determines where a protected facility is within the scope of the accident scenario. However, elderly who belong to the sensitive group is more sensitive than the general group under the same chemical accident effect, and the extent of the damage is serious. According to data from the Korea National Statistic Office, the number of elderly people is expected to increase steadily. Therefore, a quantitative risk analysis considering the elderly is necessary as a result of a chemical accident. In this study, accident scenarios for 14 locations were set up to perform emergency evacuation due to toxic gas leakage of Cl₂(Chlorine) and HF(Hydrogen Fluoride), and the effects of exposure were analyzed based on the evacuation velocity difference of age 20s and 60s. The ALOHA(Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) program was used to calculate the concentration for assessing the effects. The time of exposure to toxic gas was calculated based on the time it took for the evacuation to run from the start point to the desired point and a methodology was devised that could be applied to the risk calculation. As a result of the study, the relative risk of the elderly, the sensitive group, needs to be determined.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.3
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• pp.13-26
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• 2021

Recent drought events in the South Korea and the magnitude of drought losses indicate the continuing vulnerability of the agricultural drought. Various studies have been performed on drought hazard assessment at the regional scales, but until recently, drought management has been response oriented with little attention to mitigation and preparedness. A vulnerability assessment is introduced in order to preemptively respond to agricultural drought and to predict the occurrence of drought. This paper presents a method for spatial, Geographic Information Systems-based assessment of agricultural drought vulnerability in South Korea. It was hypothesized that the key 14 items that define agricultural drought vulnerability were meteorological, agricultural reservoir, social, and adaptability factors. Also, this study is to analyze agricultural drought vulnerability by comparing vulnerability assessment according to weighting method. The weight of the evaluation elements is expressed through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which includes subjective elements such as surveys, and the Entropy method using attribute information of the evaluation items. The agricultural drought vulnerability map was created through development of a numerical weighting scheme to evaluate the drought potential of the classes within each factor. This vulnerability assessment is calculated the vulnerability index based on the weight, and analyze the vulnerable map from 2015 to 2019. The identification of agricultural drought vulnerability is an essential step in addressing the issue of drought vulnerability in the South Korea and can lead to mitigation-oriented drought management and supports government policymaking.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.15-20
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• 2014

This study carried out passenger safety assessment by real car crash simulation of composite post structures for road facilities. The effects of different material properties of composites for various parameters are studied using the LS-DYNA finite element program for this study. In this study, the existing finite element analysis of steel post structures using the LS-DYNA program is further extended to study dynamic behaviors of the structures made of various composite materials. The numerical results for various parameters are verified by comparing different models with displacements and stress distribution occurred in the post and car.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.114-122
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• 2015

FMEA and FTA have been widely applied to the safety studies for railway systems respectively. But it would be more effective to use these two methods at a same time because these are complementary. This article suggests a FMEA-FTA combined analysis technique to evaluate the risk for railway systems. A FMEA-FTA combined risk evaluation model and process are proposed and a case study is dealt with for PBU(Pneumatic Breaking Unit), a major subsystem of a railway vehicle.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Fire Science and Engineering Conference
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• 1997.11a
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• pp.345-352
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• 1997

We could analyse the fire behavior using the developed software for fire safety assessment in a large space such as atrium. But Korean building law hasn't admitted the result of fire risk assessment in atrium. In the legislation fire resistant wall or shutter must be required between atrium and office rooms, That has obstructed development of building design and fire protection technique in Korea. From this point of view, we made scenarios of fire spread between atrium and office rooms, and then computed fire spread and fire phenomena using FASTLite and Breakl. In this study, we can decide that fire compartmentalization between atrium and office rooms doesn't require in Atrium building if the material and fire protection system were reliable. Consequently, Korean Fire Protection Regulations have to consider in direction of increasing freedom of building.