Sung-Yong Kang

With increasing industrial sophistication and complexity, workplaces are increasingly prone to occupational accidents, causing negative impacts on workers and employers, including economic losses and decreased productivity. South Korea occupational safety and health has implemented new policies addressing potential risks to overcome stagnation in industrial accident reduction and predict site accidents from past cases. Cases are human-classified according to rules, including occurrence type or original causal materials. However, human errors, subjective judgments, synonyms, and terms incorrectly used by classifiers reduce original data quality and impede developments or applications of policies, technologies, and methods preventing accidents based on past accidents. This study proposes three artificial intelligence models to objectively classify the occurrence type of accident cases. Models are developed based on a natural language processing model (KoBERT), which considers Korean language characteristics. Each model is tested by sequentially performing sentence preprocessing, keyword replacement, and morphological analysis. The proposed Model 3 exhibits 93.1% accuracy, which was the highest among tested models. Up to three classification categories for occurrence type are allowed to assist objective classification. The accident case-based occurrence type classification model is effective for industrial accident prevention, aiding in strategy development and reducing social costs.

This study aimed to develop the accident mechanism of fatal accidents taking place in multiple processes at the workplace. Multiple processes were defined as the existence of multiple work types and work processes in the same workspace. Recently, various processes are frequently conducted simultaneously in one workplace with the participation of several companies, and more workers are increasingly experiencing industrial accidents while working in multiple processes. To prevent accidents in the multiple processes caused by the sameness of work period and space, the accident process was investigated by analyzing the investigation reports on serious industrial accidents in South Korea, and then the accident mechanism model was developed. By utilizing the developed model, the major safety measures to be taken by the contractor for each of the 8 types of accidents caused by the multiple processes were drawn. The roles and responsibilities of the contractor to be implemented in order to prevent accident occurrence in multiple processes were proposed through the accident mechanism of each type of fatal accident. It is expected that the accidents taking place in the multiple processes can be prevented with the drawn results.

As the social cost of disasters increases and safety is being emphasized, policy regulations at the national level have been implemented. However, various fatal accidents are continually occurring as continued economic development and enhanced technologies have increased demand and complicated the industrial structure. Workers in different industries, performing similar jobs, often experience different workplace hazards, which can result in similar types of accidents. Therefore, new policy regulations have been established to separate multiple processes and work in workplaces and are being implemented in several countries to minimize damage caused by new types of industrial accidents. Supervision and management appropriate for contractors or safety and health officials with legal obligations are required to play a regulatory role when these types of industrial accidents are likely to occur. This study classified accidental types and their characteristics based on actual cases, in which potential risks exist at multiple processes in a workplace. First, raw data of work-related fatalities that occurred in South Korea were reviewed and classified as fatal accidents caused by multiple processes in workplaces using the proposed method. Next, the classified actual cases were prepared as statistical data and analyzed based on the various categories. Finally, the accident type based on multiple processes, including risks and characteristics, in workplaces was proposed. As a result, this study improved the safety awareness and understanding of regulatory subjects regarding industrial accidents caused by multiple processes in workplaces and is expected to improve the effectiveness of the existing policy to prevent workplace accidents.

In recent years, there has been a growing demand for renewable energy that is free of power generation by products to address the global climate and resource limitation crises. Wind power generation is maximizing efficiency through constant research and development, and as the use of large capacity turbines increases, the scale of supporting structure also increases. The structural maintenance of hollow towers, the supporting structure of wind turbines, requires the installation of an opening through which workers can access the tower to check corrosion, cracks, and damage to the tower body. However, these access points can affect the buckling strength of the tower structures due to section loss. In this study, the effects of the opening on the structural stability and ultimate strength of a large diameter cylindrical shell, which could be used as a wind turbine supporting tower structure, were studied through elastic buckling and nonlinear analyses. Based on the analytical results, the effects of the thickness of a collar stiffener around the opening on the structure’s ultimate strength were investigated. The results were compared to the design criteria, and through regression analysis, an effective equation to determine the collar stiffener’s thickness for large diameter cylindrical shells was proposed based on an opening that satisfied the design strength criteria.

Workers in the construction industry are constantly exposed to dangers during work that can lead to death or disability. Despite recent advances in construction technology, the presence of these risks for workers has become an unresolved social problem. In particular, most companies often recognize that it is necessary to mitigate against risks posed to worker only after an accident has occurred. Recently, there has been an increasing demand for the development of new safety technologies and policy proposals to ensure the safety of workers during construction or work. However, the right solution is not coping after an accident but preventing it, and this must be accompanied by voluntary efforts by the company. To work toward such solutions, Korea is implementing an evaluation of construction companies’ industrial accident prevention activities without legal regulations or coercion to encourage voluntary accident prevention activities by companies. The purpose of this study is to propose an effective improvement direction for the system implemented by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. First, by analyzing the details of the system and the data of the evaluation results, the system’s effectiveness and rationality are reviewed, and steps for improvement are determined. Next, an evaluation model is proposed considering the size of the company to be evaluated and the level of safety and health, and its validity is verified through a survey of construction workers. Finally, a plan to induce the voluntary participation of construction companies in this system and the role of the supervisory authority are presented. This study is expected to serve as an important example of an effective safety policy model by encouraging companies’ voluntary efforts to prevent accidents in the construction industry and raise the level of potential safety and health awareness.