Safety Of Construction Workers Research Articles

Advantages and Disadvantages of Modular Construction, including Environmental Impacts

Similar to other fields, the construction industry tends to constantly evolve. There is an increasing demand for the construction of new buildings regarding the speed of the construction process, economy, and minimization of the negative effects on the environment, i.e. sustainability. These requirements can be met by using prefabrication for this construction. Modular construction represents one of the prefabrication technologies that is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. The topic of this article is the use of modular construction, even from the sustainability point of view. There is a basic overview of modular construction, its history in the construction field, an overview of the materials used, and the possibilities of its implementation. Furthermore, this article provides an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of modular construction. The advantages are listed in terms of quality, economy, time, and ecology as well as in terms of construction flexibility and work safety, both during production and assembly on the construction site. The disadvantages of modular construction discussed in this article are the complicated transportation of modules, demanding coordination of production and construction, the requirement for detailed construction planning, and the non-acceptance of this construction technology by the general, and sometimes professional public. This article also deals with the comparison of modular construction technology with conventional construction technologies. It points out the possibility of reusing materials from disassembled modular buildings. It also points out the ways to control and mitigate the impact of modular construction on the environment throughout the life cycle of modular building. Only after a thorough analysis of these aspects of modular construction, is it possible to explore other ways to further increase the efficiency of this technology in all directions and also to make even better use of its environmental impact minimization potential.

Machine Learning-Based Risk Analysis for Construction Worker Safety from Ubiquitous Site Photos and Videos

This paper proposes a new method for single-worker severity level prediction from already collected site images and video clips. Onsite safety observers often assess workers’ severity levels during construction activities. While risk analysis is key to improving long–term construction site safety, omnipresent monitoring is still time-consuming and costly to implement. The recent growth of visual data captured actively on construction sites has opened a new opportunity to increase the frequency of worker safety monitoring. This paper shows that a comprehensive vision-based assessment is the most informative to automatically infer worker severity level from images. Efficient computer vision models are presented to conduct this risk analysis. The method is validated on a challenging image dataset first of its kind. Specifically, the proposed method detects and evaluates the worker state from visual data, defined by (1) worker body posture, (2) the usage of personal protective equipment, (3) worker interactions with tools and materials, (4) the construction activity being performed, and (5) the presence of surrounding workplace hazards. To estimate the worker state, a multitasked recognition model is introduced that recognizes objects, activity, and keypoints from visual data simultaneously, taking 36.6% less time and 40.1% less memory while keeping comparably performances compared to a system running individual models for each subtask. Worker activity recognition is further improved with a spatio-temporal graph neural network model using recognized per-frame worker activity, detected bounding boxes of tools and materials, and estimated worker poses. Finally, severity levels are predicted by a trained classifier on a dataset of images of construction workers accompanied with ground truth severity level annotations. In the test dataset assembled from real-world projects, the severity level prediction model achieves 85.7% cross-validation accuracy in a bricklaying task and 86.6% cross-validation accuracy for a plastering task, demonstrating the potential for near real-time worker safety detection and severity assessment.

Slope Stability Evaluation of Basement Excavation: A Case Study

A deep excavation should be designed and implemented together with the precautions to prevent any loss of stability and structural damage in the infrastructure and superstructure elements of the neighboring parcels and risks against construction worker's health and safety. This study represents an example of soil damage that may occur due to foundation excavation. The features of the soil affected by the excavation were analyzed through a geological survey and soil models were created for each analysis stages. The study investigates the slope stability analyses that take place during the foundation excavation with the commonly used limit equilibrium (LE) methods. In this article, slope problems that may occur around the excavation before the construction of the basement of a 3-storey school building in Istinye Neighborhood of Istanbul Sarıyer district are examined. First, geotechnical and structural parameters were determined by obtaining detailed drilling reports of the region. Then the study area was modeled with the Rocscience Slide 6.0 program based on the limit equilibrium method. Following the evaluation of the basement excavations, a beveled excavation was made for the safety of the basement construction after the excavation and the stability of the slope excavations was found to be sufficient.

JOB DESCRIPTION- RELATED DIFFERENCES IN WORK SAFETY PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORKERS IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT The construction sector is a challenging sector where many stakeholders have to work together to ensure occupational health and safety. Workers are the most important actors in ensuring a safe climate. Therefore, the workers’ perceptions of work safety are very substantial in a construction site. This study aims to investigate the work safety perceptions of the workers having different job descriptions in the construction industry. A questionnaire was applied to 130 workers in different job positions at a residential building construction site in Turkey. The workers’ perceptions were asked in four categories: construction work safety, coworkers’ safety attitude, occupational health and safety specialists’ safety attitude, and site manager’s safety attitude. For analysis, the relative importance index was calculated, and ANOVA analysis was used. The results showed that (1) the workers’ work safety perceptions were limited with their job description, (2) the cultural structure of the employees may prevent workers from being impartial in evaluating safety issues, (3) and considering different workgroups’ safety needs and ensuring participation in the safety issues are compulsory for safety managers. The findings of the study are expected to contribute to improvements in safety management practices of safety management actors.

Effect of leader-member exchange on construction worker safety behavior: Safety climate and psychological capital as the mediators

There are ubiquitous binary leader-member exchanges between construction workers and their supervisors. Leader-member exchange (LMX) has been regarded as an antecedent variable of work performance. However, few studies empirically examined the influence pathways of LMX on worker safety behavior, especially in the context of construction industry, thereby reducing its potential to improve construction safety. This study explored the relationship between LMX and construction worker safety behavior (CWSB), while the mediating roles of safety climate (SC) and psychological capital (PC) for the LMX-CWSB relationship and the mediating role of SC for the LMX-PC relationship were also tested. Data were collected from 536 construction workers in China through field survey. The hypothesized model was examined with the structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. Results show that: (a) LMX directly impacted SC and PC, and indirectly affected CWSB through SC and PC, demonstrating LMX’s cascading role on CWSB; (b) SC directly impacted PC and CWSB, and mediated the LMX-PC and LMX-CWSB relationships; and (c) PC positively associated with safety participation behavior (SPB), and mediated the LMX-SPB and SC-SPB relationships. These findings illustrate the complexity of LMX-safety interrelationship and the necessity of initiating both organizational and individual safety interventions simultaneously. This study sheds lights on safety performance research based on the cross-level model. Systematic intervention measures such as cultivating supervisor-worker exchanges and positive safety climate, and enhancing construction workers’ psychological capital are suggested to upgrade construction safety performance.

Risk Perception and Coping Behavior of Construction Workers on Occupational Health Risks-A Case Study of Nanjing, China.

To reduce harm caused by occupational health risks of construction workers exposed to working environments, especially those for interior decoration, it is crucial for them to actively recognize and prevent these risks. Therefore, how to improve their occupational health risks perception and regulate their coping behaviors should be of great concern. However, most prior studies target construction worker safety, and little research focuses on risk analysis from the psychological level of workers. Hence, construction workers’ occupational health risk perception level and coping behavior level in Nanjing and the influencing factors were analyzed through statistical analysis with 341 valid questionnaires. Bootstrapping was applied to test the mediating effects of risk perception on the proposed factors and coping behaviors. This study revealed that construction workers have a high-level of occupational health risk perception, yet low-level coping behavior. Gender, age, education level, and unit qualification cause differences in individual risk perception level. Personal knowledge and group effects significantly affect the level of risk perception, which subsequently affect coping behavior. Education level, monthly income, and personal knowledge influence the coping behavior through risk perception. Recommendations were put forward for risk perception and coping behavior improvement from the perspectives of construction workers themselves, enterprises, and governments. This study sheds new light for research areas of occupational health and risk management and provides beneficial practice for improving construction workers’ responses to occupational health risks.

A review of construction safety climate: Definitions, factors, relationship with safety behavior and research agenda

In recent years, numerous studies on construction safety climate (CSC) had emerged, but there are concerns about the inconsistencies in the definitions, measurement, and factor structures of CSC. The inconsistencies in these empirical studies cause difficulties in growing a coherent body of knowledge to facilitate its sustained development and implementation. Furthermore, because of the importance of construction worker safety behavior (CWSB), there is a need to further evaluate the relationship between CSC and CWSB, so that CSC can be effectively used to improve CWSB. Hence, this study aims to conduct a thorough review of previous studies on CSC to identify current research trends and gaps, provide a coherent theoretical framework and propose future research agenda. This paper first presents an overview of CSC research through analysis of publication years, affiliations, authors, researchers’ collaborative networks, publication sources, and research topics. Subsequently, the study identified different definitions and conceptualization paradigms, and we recommend a perception-based definition focusing on safety management system as the object of perception. In addition, we distinguished different categories of CSC differentiated based on organizational levels. We reviewed established CSC scales and factor structures, but we realized that there were inconsistencies. Thus, we proposed a CSC factor structure using the validated items in past CSC scales. In addition, the review showed that the relationship between CSC and CWSB is mediated by different mediators, which are compiled in this paper to facilitate future studies. Finally, four CSC research areas were proposed based on the research gaps identified.

Challenges influencing the safety of migrant workers in the construction industry: A qualitative study in Italy, Spain, and the UK

The construction industry is notoriously high risk for accidents, injuries, and deaths, particularly for non-national or migrant workers, who comprise a significant proportion of the workforce. This paper presents an international, qualitative study focused on exploring the challenges which influence the safety of migrant construction workers in Italy, Spain, and the UK. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, we formulated two research questions about the challenges relating to safety that migrant workers face and the challenges to safety training effectively improving migrant workers’ safety behaviours. We present our template analysis of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 88 participants from four occupational groups across all three countries. This identified commonalities and differences in interpretations of the primary challenges to migrant workers’ safety, amongst participants from the various occupational groups (workers, site supervisors, safety trainers and safety experts) in Italy, Spain, and the UK. These were associated with: increased use of subcontractors; dilution of safety standards down the supply chain; pressure to breach safety regulations on site; differing safety-related attitudes and behaviours due to national cultural differences, language barriers and issues relating to training (provision, delivery, language, content and transfer). Finally, we summarise the contributions and limitations of our study, arguing further interventions related to safety training are needed, along with ethnographic studies to explore how both macro-level and contextual factors affect safety outcomes for migrant construction workers.

Automatic detection of safety helmet wearing based on head region location

In order to solve the problem of difficult and low precision in the detection of safety helmet wearing in the complex pose of construction worker, a detection method of safety helmet wearing based on pose estimation is proposed. In the pose estimation model of OpenPose, the residual network optimized feature extraction is introduced to obtain the skeletal point information of the construction worker, and then the pose of the construction worker is estimated based on the skeletal point information, three-point localization method is proposed for the front and back pose, and skin colour detection method is proposed for the side pose, and then to determine the head region. The YOLO v4 is used to detect the safety helmet region, and then the construction worker's safety helmet wearing is judged according to whether the head region intersects the safety helmet region or not. Experimental results show that the detection accuracy of the method is higher than other methods, and the adaptability to the environment is stronger.

Integration of Safety Knowledge into Three-Dimensional Model Design and Construction Plan from the Perspective of Project Executors in Petrochemical Industry

In petrochemical industry, the execution of construction involves three main issues, namely, design planning, construction, and job safety. Three-dimensional (3D) models are increasingly applied to design and construction. However, the improper concept of 3D design has bred potential unsatisfactory behaviors and the lack of vigilance among workers. Besides, many employees are not fully aware of the safety in 3D design and construction planning. Therefore, our goal is to improve the safety and health of construction workers through design practices in the upstream of the construction phase, and verify the applicability of the combination of 3D models and safety knowledge. Specifically, a questionnaire survey was carried out among 124 employees in the construction-related fields of the petrochemical industry. The collected data were processed, and statically analyzed on SPSS. The results show that safety knowledge was acceptable in 3D model design from the perspective of project executors, and the integration of safety knowledge into the design helps to improve the safety environment of the construction site.

Investigations on the wind force and flow of a scaffolding system

ABSTRACT A scaffolding system model at one side of the exterior surfaces of a square building was set in the wind tunnel to measure the wind forces on the system in various oncoming-flow directions. The scaffolding system with additional clad sheets at three porosity ratios was tested to examine its wind load effect. Moreover, numerical computations were performed to examine the wind flow in the region between the building surface and the impermeable clad sheet. Results show that a decrease of screen porosity generally promotes varies wind force with the oncoming-flow direction variation. As the scaffolding system is at the windward side of the building, a maximum total push-in force occurs. When the system is parallel to the oncoming-flow direction, the total pull-out force becomes maximum. The cross-sectional maximum and minimum net pressure values mostly occur near the edge or the corner of the scaffolding system. Among all oncoming-flow directions, finally, cross-sectional large wind speeds usually occur at the upstream upper corner in the scaffolding system. The most critical situation that endangers the safety of construction workers due to the occurrence of local gust wind can happen when the oncoming-flow direction angle is within the range of 60 to 90 degrees.

Utilizing safety rule correlation for mobile scaffolds monitoring leveraging deep convolution neural networks

Falls from height (FFH) are still a leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry, which also includes scaffolding-related accidents. Despite regular safety inspections, numerous scaffolding-related accidents occur at the construction site. The current safety monitoring practices are not only impractical but infeasible due to dynamicity of construction environment. Since a separate computer training and detection process is generally required to acquire spatiotemporal reasoning to control a single hazard; thus previous efforts in vision intelligence applications to improve safety monitoring are still limited to specific hazards. Also, in regard to detecting unsafe situations based on extracted correlations from safety rules, to date, previous studies have devoted little attention to this domain. To address these issues, this study proposes a correlation-based approach for mobile scaffold safety monitoring and detecting worker's unsafe behaviors. A deep neural network, Mask R-CNN, was used as classification and segmentation of worker's tasks combined with object correlation detection (OCD) module to identify worker's unsafe behaviors. The approach divides the overall construction worker's safety into two subsets, classification of worker and detection of safe (class-1) and unsafe (class-2) behavior using OCD block. The overall performance was evaluated on set of real scenarios with test results showing 85 % and 97 % precision and recall for class-1 (safe behavior) and 91 % and 65 % precision and recall for class-2 (unsafe behavior). The overall accuracy of 86 % confirms the Mask R-CNN-based OCD module's applicability for detecting worker's unsafe behavior effectively in a construction environment.

Wearable sensing devices acceptance behavior in construction safety and health: assessing existing models and developing a hybrid conceptual model

Purpose This study aims to examine relationships between several key technology acceptance variables that predict workers’ wearable sensing devices (WSDs) acceptance in the construction industry by using technology acceptance model, theory of planned behavior and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model. The study proposes a hybrid conceptual model to measure construction field workers’ intentions to use WSDs and their usage behaviors. The study introduces variables that are instrumental in understanding and improving WSD acceptance in construction. Design/methodology/approach The study was carried out using a structured literature review, online survey and structural equation modeling. A total of 195 field workers across the USA, with experience in using WSDs, participated in the study. Findings Results indicate that all three theories predict WSD acceptance with variables explaining at least 89% of the variance in actual use, with the UTAUT outperforming other models (91%). However, the differences between the predictive power of these models were not statistically significant. A hybrid conceptual model is proposed using findings from the present study. Practical implications The study contributes to knowledge and practice by highlighting key variables that influence WSD acceptance. Findings from this study should provide stakeholders with critical insights needed to successfully drive WSD acceptance in the construction industry. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the predictive strength of multiple technology acceptance theories and models within the construction worker safety technology domain. Additionally, the study proposes a hybrid conceptual model which could provide practitioners and researchers with information pertinent to enhancing WSD acceptance.

Determination of Construction Safety Costs in Industrial Projects

Construction projects are increasing in number and budget every year, as well as the level of accidents in the construction sector has not decreased as issued by the strategic issue of K3, construction accidents are in the first place with 32% in 2017 and recently there was the collapse of a 4-story building in Jakarta. In the previous regulation, Financing for Construction Safety was regulated separately from Contracts financed by the State Budget so that labor guarantees were not clear. With SMKK, work safety financing becomes a package in the contract. Service Users provide consultancy services and Construction Work while Service Providers perform Construction Work and Construction Safety. With these data, the authors have a goal of how the cost of construction safety can be implemented in order to reduce the number of accidents that arise. Methods The research was conducted by looking for relevant references from various sources and conducting interviews with several project implementers. The conclusion is that SMKK financing is a package with the implementation contract, so certainty for personal protective equipment and work protective equipment is available if neglected by the labor service provider can use for it.

Above and beyond: ethics and responsibility in civil engineering

ABSTRACT This exploratory study investigates how nine London-based civil engineers have enacted ‘global responsibility’ and how their efforts involve ethics and professionalism. The study assesses moral philosophies related to ethics, as well as professional engineering bodies’ visions, accreditation standards, and requirements for continuing professional development. Regarding ethics, the study questions where the line falls between what an engineer ‘must do’ and what ‘would be good to do’. Although the term ethics did not spring to mind when participants were asked about making decisions related to global responsibility, participants’ concern for protecting the environment and making life better for people did, nonetheless, demonstrate clear ethical concern. Participants found means and mandates for protecting the health and safety of construction workers to be clearer than those for protecting society and the natural environment. Specific paths for reporting observed ethical infringements were not always clear. As such, angalyses suggest that today’s shared sense of professional duty and obligation may be too limited to achieve goals set by engineering professional bodies and the United Nations. Moreover, although professional and educational accreditation standards have traditionally embedded ethics within sustainability, interviews indicate sustainability is a construct embedded within ethics.

Applying beacon sensor alarm system for construction worker safety in workplace

The construction site is one of the most dangerous workplaces among all the industries, workers are exposed to various hazards sources. Ubiquitous accidents occur even with detailed regulations and laws. Situation awareness theory revealed that there are three processes when people are dealing with the changing environment: perception of environmental situation, comprehension of what people are dealing with and decision-making. The likelihood of risky behaviours increases a lot when any of these processes go wrong. In this paper, the author proposed an alarm system to help workers get a better perception of construction site and improve the efficiency and quality of safety management. In this system, a beacon sensor will be deployed on the hazard source and it will keep send Bluetooth package to receiver equipment. Workers will carry the receiver, a BLE sensor, to calculate the distance between people and the hazard point. If the distance is less than the setting number, the sensor will trigger the alarm to broadcast siren and send the unsafety behaviour event to manager backend to archive the entire process.

Factors Causing Health and Safety Hazards at Construction Sites

The Construction industry is prone to risk to health and safety hazards. Construction workers should have the knowledge of health and safety and apply the knowledge while working. The main objective of this paper was to review and to identify the factors that cause accidents at construction sites and the methods to improve health and safety. The review revealed that lack of awareness about site safety and negligence of workers in wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) were the main causes of poor safety practices. It is necessary to create employer’s and contractor’s interests in safety management and enhance awareness on possible risk factors to reduce these risk factors among workers. Effective implementation of training and safety awareness programs among construction workers is vital to improve health and safety of construction workers.

Analysis of Construction Workers’ Safety Behavior Based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Test in a Bridge Construction Project

The construction industry has high accident rates, and construction workers’ unsafe behavior is regarded as a major factor resulting in construction accidents. Behavioral psychology posits that human behavior is driven by psychology, and personality is one of the important psychological characteristics affecting human behavior. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the relationship between the personality and unsafe behavior of construction workers. This research explored the preliminary relationship between the personality type and unsafety behavior of construction workers, and analyzed the differences in safety performance from the perspective of personality types. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was used as the personality evaluation method, and a questionnaire was designed and distributed in a bridge construction project in Jiangsu Province, China. A total of 164 responses were collected, and 129 of them were valid. The results showed that (1) most of construction workers had a preference for extraversion (E) (63.6%), sensing (S) (62.8%), thinking (T) (73.6%), and judging (J) (61.3%); (2) ESTJ (24.8%), ESTP (where P is perceiving) (9.3%), ENTJ (where N is intuition) (9.3%), ISTJ (where I is introversion) (7.8%), and INTJ (7.8%) were the five most diverse personality types, exceeding half of the total number of survey; (3) ESTJ and ESFJ (where F is feeling) types of workers had higher average accident losses (3.6 and 4.0, respectively) than those with the other personality types (less than 2.0); and (4) ESTJ and ESFJ types of construction workers had relatively longer safe periods (3–4 and more than 4.0, respectively) as well. These findings will contribute to the body of knowledge in construction safety management, and help targeted construction worker safety training as well as on-site supervision, thus reducing the possibility of worker injury and improving the safety level on site.

Characteristics of failure area and failure mechanism of a landslide in Yingjiang County, Yunnan, China

Due to excavations and continuous rainfall, two landslides occurred on February 9, 2018, and July 28, 2019, respectively, in the quarry of the Changdifang Reservoir engineering area, in Yingjiang County, Yunnan Province, China. The volume of the second landslide was approximately 2.4 × 105 m3, threatening the safety of construction workers and the hydropower station project construction severely. In order to explore the causes of these two landslides, the geological and hydrological conditions and the current excavation status of the landslide area were investigated, the relationship between rainfall and the displacement of the landslide body was compared and analyzed, and the landslide process and failure characteristics were described in detail. The failure mechanism of these two landslides were distinguished: (1) the poor rock mass properties, due to the strong weathering and tectonic joint of the rock mass; (2) the steep slope (of 63° in largest dip angle) induced by the slope excavation, as well as (3) the continuous heavy rainfall. The unfavorable geological condition was a determinant factor, and the combined effects of excavation and continuous rainfall were triggering factors that induced the landslide. The research results show that the displacement of the landslide body has significant seasonal characteristics. In the rainy season, there is a significant acceleration of displacement, and the slow displacement will remain for a long time after the rainy season. Consequently, it is very necessary to take reasonable slope treatment measures and continue to monitor the slope.

Influence of the Internet of Things’ application on construction project performance

Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of interconnected devices that are embedded with network connectivity, sensors, software that enable them to amass and exchange data making them responsive. The study is aimed at examining the effects of the IoT on construction project performance with the view of increasing productivity and efficiency. Quantitative research method was adopted and questionnaires were structured on a five-point Likert scale to elicit the opinion of respondents. Descriptive and Inferential analysis were used in analyzing the retrieved data. The most important effects of IoT are security and privacy, collecting previous data, safety comfort and efficiency. Factor analysis was used to group the various impacts of IoT into six. The results showed that there were nine variables with a significant difference while the others ten are not. It was concluded that the IoT adoption has a high influence on the security, privacy, safety, productivity and performance of construction workers. It is recommended that variables with least influenced areas can be developed by improving the skills of professionals. Government is also encouraged to adopt the principles of IoT not only in construction but other sectors to improve the economy of the nation.