Keywords: electricity hazards, occupational hazards, construction safety, risk assessment, risk management, decision-making.

Construction projects frequently encounter occupational hazards of several types involving the construction personnel and the machinery. Among them, electricity related hazards, although not as frequent as other types, are of high impact and usually result in fatal injuries. While practical experience may prevent many of these accidents from happening, in most cases there are a series of events and factors that lead to hazardous conditions. It thus becomes necessary to study the importance of each factor, the way the factor is involved and the degree of contribution to accident occurrence.

In this direction, the present study aims to develop a methodology for providing decision support to safety engineers in preventing or reducing the impact of electricity related hazards. The importance of this work lies on its effort to structurally and explicitly illustrate the factors or conditions that may trigger accidents or be responsible for their high impact. The methodology includes modules for risk assessment that provide quantitative indications of the probability of occurrence and expected impact of a potential accident, both combined in a single risk parameter called the risk exposure. Three main sources of hazards were analyzed: overhead electrical lines, underground electrical lines, and portable electric equipment. After determining and describing the factors that affect the probability of occurrence and the likely accident impact in each case, the determinant factors are quantified, weights are set to describe the contribution of each factor to the probability and impact, and a multi-criteria model is employed for assessing the overall values for risk probability, impact and exposure.

The methodology has been implemented in Microsoft Excel to allow easy manipulation. The user inserts relevant information regarding the operating and local conditions of the construction site and gets detailed output on probabilities, likely impacts, and overall risk exposure. The proposed model has been applied to a number of actual and typical projects and was found to reasonably describe and assess electricity related hazards. Further, it was used to assess the amount of safety improvement following the implementation of particular safety measures.

Another goal of this study was to simulate safety using virtual reality tools. Health and safety training is a real demand nowadays and virtual reality seems to be a very effective tool for this providing the means for identifying hazards and proposing safety measures in a virtual environment without the dramatic consequences of real world accidents. A virtual reality application was developed as part of this study where basic rules to avoid electricity related accidents in construction sites were visualized.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £130 +P&P)