Abel Pinto

Fuzzy approach for reducing subjectivity in estimating occupational accident severity

Quantifying or, more generally, estimating the severity of the possible consequences of occupational accidents is a decisive step in any occupational risk assessment process. Because of the lack of historic information (accident data collection and recording are incipient and insufficient, particularly in construction) and the lack of practical tools in the construction industry, the estimation/quantification of occupational accident severity is a notably arbitrary process rather than a systematic and rigorous assessment. This work proposes several severity functions (based on a safety risk assessment) to represent biomechanical knowledge with the aim of determining the severity level of occupational accidents in the construction industry and, consequently, improving occupational risk assessment quality. We follow a fuzzy approach because it makes it possible to capture and represent imprecise knowledge in a simple and understandable way for users and specialists.

Qualitative Model for Risk Assessment in Construction Industry: A Fuzzy Logic Approach

Risk Assessment for Health and Safety (RAH&S) of workers is a complex task that entails the consideration of many parameters which are, more often than not, difficult to quantify. RAH&S in the construction industry is rampant with inadequate data and/or imprecise and incomplete information, particularly in the design stage, for which traditional quantitative approaches do not give adequate answers. In this work we outline the basic aspects for a Qualitative Risk Assessment Model (QRAM) based on elicited data and using a fuzzy logic approach.

Aplicação preliminar do método QRAM para avaliação de riscos para segurança ocupacional na construção civil

A seguranca ocupacional e imprescindivel na industria da construcao civil e a analise e avaliacao de riscos para a seguranca ocupacional (AARSO) e o primeiro e fundamental passo para alcanca-la, baseado na definicao e implementacao de programas de prevencao. A AARSO e um processo complexo, que implica a consideracao e analise de muitos parâmetros quantitativos e/ou qualitativos que sao dificeis de quantificar. As metodologias AARSO utilizadas na industria da construcao civil sao baseadas em informacao sujeita a incerteza (sendo tratada por tecnicas probabilisticas e/ou estatisticas), difusa, imprecisa e/ou incompleta. Isso implica algumas limitacoes, como, por exemplo, obrigar os analistas a estimar parâmetros ou efetuar comparacoes com outros canteiros de obras (o que afasta do sistema real em estudo). O objetivo inicial deste estudo foi efetuar a pre-validacao de um metodo AARSO, o QRAM, em duas cidades brasileiras, de medio e grande porte.

Method of risk assessment to safety on construction industry

Analysis and Risk Assessment for Occupational Safety, on construction industry, is a complex process, which implies the consideration and analysis of many parameters, technical, organizational and psychosocial wich are difficult to quantify. The methods used are crude and based on uncertain, fuzzy, imprecise and/or incomplete information. The aim of this study is to identify the main parameters and the mathematical relationships to assess the risks and organize them in a hierarchy.