Small-scale construction sites in South Korea account for about 91.5% of all construction workplaces and contribute to 72.3% of the total accidents and fatalities. Safety measures at these sites are often underestimated, and proper safety education is lacking. In particular, the fatality rate is about 4.43 times higher compared to medium-/large-scale construction sites. In this study, a systematic analysis was conducted to examine the causes and trends of industrial accidents in small-scale construction sites to address these issues. This study analyzed industrial accidents in small-scale construction sites using statistical analysis, LDA topic modeling, and network analysis based on data from the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) from 2018 to 2022. The analysis revealed that the most critical cause of accidents in small-scale construction sites is ‘Scaffolding and working platforms’, with accidents primarily involving ‘Fall’. Furthermore, various risk factors and accident trends were identified in apartment construction, new building projects, and mobile scaffolding usage. This study systematically analyzed the causes and trends of industrial accidents at small-scale construction sites, providing important evidence to enhance safety management and preventive measures. The results are expected to play a crucial role in establishing a safety culture at construction sites and ensuring the wellbeing of construction workers.

Rainfall continues to increase due to the influence of global warming and is resulting in an increase in flood damage. The purpose of this study is to propose an approach for reducing urban flood damage and improving urban resilience. Urban flooding vulnerability analysis used land use and building characteristics as evaluation indicators. Disaster resilience analysis of urban planning facilities focused on urban and spatial aspects. The results of these analyses were overlapped to analyze whether urban planning facilities were properly located in areas vulnerable to urban flooding. The result of mapping the two results showed that there are some urban planning facilities with low resilience in the Red Zone, the central commercial area of Changwon, which has the highest vulnerability. This zone should have the appropriate placement of high-resilience facilities, such as disaster prevention facilities and space facilities. This study proposes a method to minimize flood damage in urban space. This system can cope with and systematically manage flood damage by increasing disaster resilience through appropriate land use planning and site selection for urban planning facilities.

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.

The moment capacity and rotational stiffness of wedge joints, which connect vertical and horizontal members of assembled support systems, were evaluated experimentally considering the characteristics of reused members. Since temporary structures, such as supports, tend to be reused, experiments were conducted with reused members, and the normality of the measured data was assessed. The lower and upper limits of the 95% confidence intervals of the moment capacity and rotational stiffness of wedge joints with reused members were determined. Experiments were also conducted on a joint system with new members to analyze the influence of reused members. In integrating both new and reused members, the maximum moments of wedge joints were observed to be normally distributed. The lower limit of the 95% confidence interval of the maximum moment of joints was 0.997 kNm, and the upper limit was 1.074 kNm. The rotational stiffness of the wedge joint was evaluated using a trilinear model. The initial rotational stiffness decreased with continued use of the joint. The average rotational stiffness of the joint, analyzed by combining the results for new and reused members, was found to be 22.475 kNm/rad for the first interval, 4.705 kNm/rad for the second interval, and 1.577 kNm/rad for the third interval. The lower limit of the 95% confidence interval of the initial rotational stiffness was 20.688 kNm/rad, and the upper limit was 24.262 kNm/rad.

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This study compared the influencing factors affecting safety behavior and perception between main contractor managers (CMs) and subcontractor workers (SWs) at Korean construction sites. The safety level, policies, and management capabilities of the main contractor are closely related to the safety behavior of the SWs since CMs have a key role in ensuring work order authority and safety responsibility during the work process. To compare the difference in safety behavior between CMs and SWs, ten hypotheses were prepared, and surveying was conducted. Using the responses of 1219 CMs and 1191 SWs, a frequency analysis, intensive validity analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were performed; discriminant validity was verified; and a structural equation model was constructed and compared. The results showed that the factors affecting safety behaviors and perceptions were significantly different between CMs and SWs. The WSB (workers’ safety behavior) for CMs was affected, from most to least, by the MSP (manager’s safety perception; 0.382), incentives (0.166), WSP (workers’ safety perception; 0.143), and the MSB (manager’s safety behavior; 0.134). However, for SWs, the WSB was affected, from most to least, by the MSP (0.440), WSP (0.184), the MSB (0.130), and incentives (0.083). Awarding an incentive as a way to encourage safe behavior is an important influencing factor affecting safety behavior for CMs, while workers’ safety perception (WSP) is an important factor for SWs. The results can contribute to the implementation of effective safety and accident prevention activities at construction sites by comparing the influencing factors for the safety behaviors and perceptions of CMs and SWs, which can increase the effectiveness of the safety climate and reduce the possibility of accidents.