Documents cranes 8 results

Fatal injuries involving cranes were reviewed using records from OSHA investigations from 1984 to 1994. 502 deaths in 479 incidents involving cranes in the construction industry were identified. Electrocution was the largest category, with 198 deaths (39%) reported. Other major categories were assembly and dismantling (12%), boom buckling (8%), crane upset and overturn (7%), and rigging failure (7%). The majority of the deaths during assembly and dismantling involved removal of the boom pins from lattice boom cranes. Only 34% of the construction firms employing the fatally-injured workers had ever been inspected by OSHA.

"Many procedures in the development process of crane cabins today are still based on the specific experience of manufacturers and historical guidelines. It is not surprising that they fail to meet the needs of a large proportion of operators. Accordingly, the need for more objective, theoretically justified and consistent models, that will minimize crane operators' biomechanical and visual problems through anthropometric characteristic analysis to improve safety and prevent crane related fatalities and injuries, arises. In that aim we firstly identified the critical characteristics of existing crane cabins linked to visibility and posture (seat and armrest problems) using users' opinions and Pareto analysis. We then collected rarely available data on crane operators in Serbian companies (64 in the first and 10 operators in the control sample) and proposed methodology for the ergonomic assessment of crane cabins based on drawing-board mannequins and kinematic modeling. The implemented methodology interval estimate obtains an interior space of 1095 × 1150 × 1865 mm in which is possible to eliminate the critical characteristics of existing crane cabins. The research results fulfill user needs not satisfied in existing crane cabins and suggest certain changes to existing standards on the path to improved safety."

"Construction of high-rise buildings, large-scale apartment blocks, or construction in urban areas (especially busy downtowns) demands increasingly greater use of tower cranes. Therefore, the installation and dismantling of tower cranes on construction sites is an inevitable task, but also one of the most dangerous in the construction industry. Accidents during installation (including assembling and climbing) or dismantling of tower cranes incur the loss of workers' lives as well as delays in construction schedules and/or damage to buildings under construction. The aim of this paper is to investigate factors that contribute to accidents during tower crane installation/dismantling in Korea. Accident analysis and focus group interviews (FGIs) were conducted with people involved in crane work. A total of 38 fatal accident cases involving tower cranes occurred between 2001 and 2011. Accidents occurring during installation/dismantling of tower cranes accounted for 68.4% of all fatal accidents. Accident analysis identified “Not following work procedures” as one of the main causes of these accidents, followed by “unsafe acts of workers.” The FGIs investigation revealed the following factors that adversely affected the safety of the tower crane installation/dismantling: competence of the workers; roles of stakeholders such as principal contractors in the tasks; deterioration of tower crane components; and working conditions for conducting the tasks. These results may provide regulators as well as practitioners with insights for improving the safety of tower crane installation/dismantling."

"Since cranes and tower cranes are complex installations they constitute critical aspects of safety at construction sites. The risks posed by cranes are specific and should be treated as such. Prior to assessing the impact of management and organizational factors, accident analysis should first start with an analysis of the actual accident process. The Dutch Safety Board conducted such an accident analysis involving a non-mobile, peak less, trolley tower crane. This tower crane collapsed at a Rotterdam building site on July 10th 2008. The results show that the flexibility of the configuration of the mast and the horizontal arm of the crane or the jib was greater than that calculated by the design engineer. While hoisting a heavy load, the crane collapsed. The defects in the design of the crane were not identified, so the accident was classified as a ‘normal accident', one that was essentially integral to the design and could also thus occur in other tower cranes of the same make. Such tower crane design shortcomings emerge as process disturbances once the crane is operational. Despite its shortcomings, the collapsed crane did have a CE mark. Other officially required safety audits and crane inspections did not address possible defects in the design, production, or operation of the crane. Once on the market there appears to be no further effective safety net for the detection of structural weaknesses. The article will also discuss the role of parties involved in construction and inspection of tower cranes."

"Tower crane is the lifeline of the construction industry, but tower crane accidents are still too frequent. Despite the significant progress in tower crane safety research, system thinking-based approaches are lacking. The aim of this paper is to analyze tower crane safety from a complex sociotechnical system perspective through implementing both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. Characteristics of five tower crane safety system components are summarized with a new framework comprised of five system-based levels based on Rasmussen's risk management theory. Fifty-six contributing factors of tower crane safety were identified. The AcciMap technique was applied to qualitatively build a generic model for tower crane safety, which comprehensively presents the systems levels and casual paths of the contributing factors. A survey was conducted to quantitatively research the tower crane safety system. Nine main dimensions and 25 critical factors were found pertaining to the tower crane safety system. These results provide a new lens for tower crane safety and contribute new systems thinking applications in tower crane safety management."