FARU - 2013

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/14711

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Browsing FARU - 2013 by Conference "FARU International Research Symposium 2013"

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    A Study on the factors affecting safety behavior of construction workers
    (2015-04-21) De Silva, END; Manjula, NHC
    Construction industry, being one of the most injury-prone industries worldwide in terms of serious injuries, lost work time, hospitalization, disability, and mortality, is in a great need to improve occupational safety. Behavior Based Safety (BBS) is an approach that can be applied successfully in managing occupational safety; it is gaining more interest across industry sectors globally,and has the great advantage of needing the involvement of the individual employee. This paper therefore aimed to investigate the factors governing construction workers’ safety behaviorThe factors affecting construction workers’ safety behaviorwere identified through a comprehensive literature survey. Expert interviews were conducted in order to validate and generalize the factors found in literature,to the Sri Lankan context.Two categories of factors were basically identified which affect the safety behaviorof construction workers, namely personal and organizational. The personal factors included age, marital status, education level, working experience, having dependents, and safety knowledge. Study indicated that personal factors such as habits and social life might also have an impact on a workers safety behavioryet need longitudinal research before generalizing to a particular context. Organizational factors identified were management commitment, OSH systems and feedback mechanisms, continuous monitoring of these systems, training and awareness for workers, accidents reporting, and workforce empowerment. The findings of this research were modeled in a model of construction workers’ safety behavior.Findings of this study can be used in enhancing the safety performance of the construction industry
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    Surface fraction as a variable for urban heat island Amelioration in Colombo
    (2015-04-01) Perera, NGR; Langappuli, BLT
    Rapid urbanization has resulted in the change of land use and thus land cover from rural natural, pervious green surfaces to impervious urban land. It is identified as a key reason for microclimatic changes that create the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon that effect many cities. Although, the planning parameters for Colombo, Sri Lanka do specify the building to non-built surface fraction, it does not define the nature of the non-built areas. It is also deemed that such planning and building regulations are not based on any overall climatic goals for the city. In this context, the need is to quantify urban parameters that can be controlled by urban design. This study explores the effect of the building surface fraction, impervious surface fraction, and pervious surface fraction of an urban block, as a strategy for UHI amelioration in Colombo. The range of the combinations of the above are limited to the range defined by the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification system. It is further focussed on the predominant LCZs of Colombo, LCZ3 - Compact Lowrise and LCZ2 – Compact Midrise. The study uses the computer simulation software ENVI-met to model the existing as well as the modelled surface fraction of a particular urban block, in Colombo. Results and Analysis will discuss the comparative implications of the changing surface cover on the UHI mitigation possibility in warm humid Colombo