Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Advisor

Mumtaz Usmen

Abstract

During the past decades, the construction industry has been considered as one of the most vulnerable field to work-related injuries and fatalities, and fall accidents are the leading causes accounting for about one-third of the total fatal injuries happened in construction. Furthermore, more than 30% of fall fatal cases occurred in the projects under $ 300K in Korea where construction workers' safety and health are not usually considered as top priorities because the contractors, who are normally small sized construction firms or self-employed, do not have safety budget to deal with construction workers' safety.

In this respect, this study focused on designers' role in terms of fall prevention in the construction industry because the previous researchers have discussed the effectiveness of the design for construction safety concept and publishes it as a major issue in famous journals. However, from designers' perspective, the concept has been considered as an impractical approach mainly due to their shortage of required knowledge and ability to deal with. This study found that sufficient time and cost are required for designers to progress from the awareness of design's role on construction safety to competent professionals from the history of the CDM regulations established in the United Kingdom.

This study first identified the relationship between design and 1,587 fatal fall cases occurred in Korea partly adopting the methodology of previous research, and then analyzed the dependent variable (linkage to design)'s relationship with 7 independent variables using statistical tools, which include construction end use, project type, project cost, age, fall height, location of falls, and SIC code. The author assumed that these independent variables' relationship with design would provide designers with significant indications in regard to hazard identification and design solution integration on which less-experienced designers have difficulties when applying the design for construction safety concept.

The outcomes of the statistical analysis show 6 independent variables except age have significant linkage to design, and especially design's relationships with location of falls and SIC code are strong. Designers can obtain great benefits from these results because some variables, such as construction end use, project type, and location of falls, can provide designers with practical approach to hazard identification and design solution integration..

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