保护层开采效果测评指标及应用研究

为深入分析保护层开采的实施效果,依据煤岩卸压变形理论和瓦斯运移特性,建立保护层开采测评指标体系,并选择淮南矿区对指标现场应用方法进行分析。研究结果表明:测评体系包括保护范围和保护效果两部分,其中,瓦斯压力、瓦斯含量、煤层透气性系数、煤层顶底板相对变形、瓦斯抽放量、突出指标的变化等因素可作为效果考察的现场测评指标。保护层开采后,应首先明确其保护范围,然后再对保护效果分别从煤体力学特性、煤层瓦斯特性和煤层开采动力特性3方面进行综合分析,按照现场实测值与指标临界值的对比,即可系统地定量评价保护层开采的效果。     

危险化学品道路运输安全管理现状及发展趋势研究

为降低危化品运输风险,从危化品运输风险评价、道路选线模型、技术应用、应急联动机制及平台建设、统一联控监管平台等方面进行研究分析。通过对微观视角与宏观视角、单一应用与综合应用的归类和对比,进行分析并指出存在的问题。分析表明,获取精确连续数据,考虑多种外在变量来完善评估模型,注重理论、技术和监管资源的综合应用,发展大区域联控平台将是今后研究的发展趋势。     

Efficacies of roadway safety improvements across functional subclasses of rural two-lane highways

Introduction

Highway crash occurrence is a leading cause of unnatural deaths, and highway agencies continually seek to identify engineering measures to reduce crashes and to assess the efficacy of such measures. Most past studies on the effectiveness of roadway improvements in terms of crash reduction considered all rural two-lane sections as a single category of roads. However, it may be hypothesized that the differences in the mobility and accessibility characteristics that are reflected in (and due to) the different design standards between different functional subclasses in the rural two-lane highway system can lead to differences in efficacies of safety improvements at these subclasses. This paper investigates the efficacy of roadway improvements, in terms of crash reduction, at the various subclasses of rural two-lane highways.

Methods

An empirical analysis of safety performance at each of the three subclasses of rural two-lane highways was carried out using the negative binomial modeling technique. For each subclass, crash prediction models were developed separately for the three levels of crash severity: property-damage only, injury, and fatal/injury. The crash factors that were considered include lane width, shoulder width, pavement surface friction, pavement condition, and horizontal and vertical alignments. After having developed the safety performance functions, the effectiveness (in terms of the extent of crash reduction, for different levels of crash severity) of highway safety enhancements at each highway subclass were determined using the theoretical concepts established in past literature. These enhancements include widening lanes, widening shoulders, enhancing pavement surface friction, and improving the vertical or horizontal alignment.

Results and Conclusion

The study found that there is empirical evidence to justify the decomposition of the family of rural two-lane roads into its constituent subclasses for purposes of analyzing the effectiveness of safety enhancement projects and thus to avoid underestimation or overestimation of benefits of safety improvements at this class of highways.     

The impact of the BP Baker report

Introduction

This study examined the impact of the British Petroleum (BP) Baker Panel Report, reviewing the March 2005 BP-Texas City explosion, on the field of process safety.

Method

Three hundred eighty-four subscribers of a process safety listserv responded to a survey two years after the BP Baker Report was published.

Results

Results revealed respondents in the field of process safety are familiar with the BP Baker Report, feel it is important to the future safety of chemical processing, and believe that the findings are generalizable to other plants beyond BP-Texas City. Respondents indicated that few organizations have administered the publicly available BP Process Safety Culture Survey. Our results also showed that perceptions of contractors varied depending on whether respondents were part of processing organizations (internal perspective) or government or consulting agencies (external perspective).

Conclusions

This research provides some insight into the beliefs of chemical processing personnel regarding the transportability and generalizability of lessons learned from one organization to another.

Impact on Industry

This study has implications for both organizational scientists and engineers in that it reveals perceptions about the primary mechanism used to share lessons learned within one industry about one major catastrophe (i.e., investigation reports). This study provides preliminary information about the perceived impact of a report such as this one.     

Development of an indirect-cost calculation model suitable for workplace use

Introduction: Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) stakeholders rarely factor the cost of workplace accidents into prevention spending decisions. The lack of consideration of this key information is related to the fact that the scientific literature has failed to provide OHS stakeholders with a cost-calculation tool that is both sufficiently accurate and does not require a data-collection stage ill-suited to the time constraints of workplace decision-makers. Method: This study reviews the recent literature to identify key elements that should foster the use of indirect-cost calculation methods by decision makers. Results: A “local” approach currently appears to be the best method for calculating indirect costs of workplace incidents or accidents in comparison to “bottom-up” or “top-down” approach. This paper discusses four criteria that this type of approach must satisfy to be compatible with the time constraints and accuracy demands of OHS stakeholders in organizations. In addition, four bases for the development of a new indirect cost estimation model are presented and discussed. Impact on industry: this study provides bases and criteria to help the development of indirect-cost calculation models better suited to workplace use than those currently available.     

New approach to calculate the probability of ignition

The probabilistic approach to the evaluation of fire hazard and the effectiveness of fire-precaution measures enables a rational response to the randomness of fire outbreaks. This article employs the statistical analysis methods to elucidate the causes for the ignition of fire on a random sample of industrial buildings in the Republic of Slovenia. The analyses are based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which is a well established and important statistical analysis technique in the fields of social science, biology, psychology and medicine, but hitherto rarely applied in safety research. The results of the study demonstrate that for the analyzed random sample of industrial buildings the frequency of fire outbreaks statistically significantly depends only on the presence and the probability of exposure to the heat sources (flames, sparks, and hot surfaces), but does not significantly depend on the available quantity of flammable materials within the industrial structure.     

On the development of a new hybrid risk assessment process using occupational accidents’ data: Application on the Greek Public Electric Power Provider

The occupational accidents have a major impact upon human integrity and also bring about high costs for the social health and insurance system of a country. In addition, risk analysis is an essential process for the safety policy of a company, having as main aim the effacement of any potential of damage in a productive procedure, while the quantified risk evaluation is the most crucial part of the whole procedure of assessing hazards in the work. The main goal of this study is double: a) the development and presentation of a new hybrid risk assessment process (HRAP) and b) the application of HRAP in the Greek Public Power Corporation (PPC) (the unique electric power provider and the largest industry in Greece), by using occupational accidents that have been recorded, during the 12-year period of 1993-2004. The new process consists of four distinct phases a) the hazard sources’ identification phase, b) the risk consideration phase, c) the risk-evaluation phase, and d) the phase of the risk assessment and safety-related decision making. The results show that in some cases the risk value has been calculated in PPC to be higher than 500 (in the risk rating of 0-1000), which imposes the taking of suppressive measures for abolishing the danger source, while the fatal accident frequency rate (per 10⁸ man-hrs) is FAFR ≅ 2.4.