BIM-based hazard recognition and evaluation methodology for automating construction site risk assessment

Construction sites in Korea are the locus of many disasters and work-related illnesses, and construction workers are particularly likely to be exposed to serious disasters such as falls, collapses, and burial. At domestic construction sites, the concept of Design for Safety has been adopted from abroad, and current regulations are intended to secure the personnel safety at each site. However, current government guidelines and regulations are difficult to apply in the field, mainly because they do not clearly address work issues and safety management measures. The current safety review method depends too much on the subjective experience of site workers or managers. This study analyzes the step-by-step tasks required for more automated building information modeling (BIM)-based construction site safety management. An example BIM-based assessment of one specific construction site hazard, the risk of a worker fall, is carried out. In the risk analysis stage, all of the associated hazards are identified and the attendant risks are estimated and quantified. A broader risk rating methodology is derived based on the scenarios of each possible disaster at a construction site, and the hazards are extracted by defining the relationships between each building element based on the BIM information. The result is a risk rating methodology derived from a BIM-based risk assessment.