Risk estimation of construction activities of buildings

Abstract

Building construction work is one of the most dangerous activities among all industries. These works are often associated with different types of risks, which if not eliminated or minimized during design stages would cause fatal accidents and severe injuries during the construction stages. Risk elimination or reduction cannot be achieved without recognizing hazards and assessing risk through evaluation techniques. Risk may not be directly quantifiable, and the presence of confounding variables, ongoing interventions and uncertainty makes generalization of findings to the overall population a suspect. It is difficult to measure risk because it often assumes ordinal scales and data related to it is scarce. This paper presents a risk estimation technique that evaluates risk and produce data that can be used in response decisions to aid risk elimination or reduction in building construction processes. The technique to be presented in this paper will be based on experts' opinion and will depend on experts' knowledge and working experience in the construction industry. The study will conduct a risk assessment survey where experts will be asked to assign risk values to 25 construction activities of five structural elements (footing and foundation, column, wall, beam and roof). The objective is to estimate unit safety risk for each activity and determine the overall risk of the project. A questionnaire with all five components and their corresponding construction activities was used to evaluate risk severity levels and time of exposure for each activity. Data collected was analysed with SPSS descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA. The findings show that construction field personnel perceive roof, beam and foundation as the most risky design elements to construct. Also excavation, shuttering and anchoring/welding are the most risky activities in the construction process. No significant differences were found between the perceptions of the three groups of construction field personnel (engineers, superintendents and HSEs) regarding risk perception.