Tower cranes are one of the mostly-used equipment on construction sites, albeit poses significant threats to the involved crews. Although some researchers have conducted research for improving the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of tower crane operations, the tower crane-related accidents are still increasing. Considering this safety concern, conducting quality research on this fertile ground is vital, so as to improve the safety and health of the workers involved in tower crane operations. Considering a comprehensive literature review on the studies undertaken on the concerned area, there are two major gaps that need to be bridged as follows: (1) there is a paucity of a comprehensive risk-based decision-making framework that can identify and analyze all the contributing factors, p...[ Read more ]

Tower cranes are one of the mostly-used equipment on construction sites, albeit poses significant threats to the involved crews. Although some researchers have conducted research for improving the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of tower crane operations, the tower crane-related accidents are still increasing. Considering this safety concern, conducting quality research on this fertile ground is vital, so as to improve the safety and health of the workers involved in tower crane operations. Considering a comprehensive literature review on the studies undertaken on the concerned area, there are two major gaps that need to be bridged as follows: (1) there is a paucity of a comprehensive risk-based decision-making framework that can identify and analyze all the contributing factors, prioritize the threatening risks, and unravel the potential controlling measures for reducing the magnitudes of the related accidents, (2) lack of an automated safety risk assessment tool that can provide the concerned safety decision-makers with not only analysis of the magnitude of safety risks, but also the evaluation strategies to control them are given. Having said that, the mentioned gaps can pose danger to the involved workers in the tower crane operations. To solve these gaps, this dissertation aimed at developing Al-based algorithms to improve the OHS of tower crane operations.

First of all, an Ensemble Fuzzy-based Decision-Making Framework (EFDMF) to improve the OHS of tower crane operations is developed in this study. The novel contributions of the developed EFDMF based on its step-by-step application to several construction sites are observed to be threefold as follows: (1) determination of critical casual factors through considering their significance concurrently with their influence levels, (2) identification and prioritization of risks threatening the lives of relative workers, and (3) provision and prioritization of beneficial control measures in reducing the magnitude of the risks associated with such operations. From the results obtained, safety management system-and governmental regulations-related casual factors are observed to be the most critical ones, while struck by falling load is the most perilous risk. Moreover, technological-related control measures are found to be the most influential ones.

Secondly, a Knowledge-Based Decision-Support-System Safety Risk Assessment (KBDSS- SRA) is developed in this study. Through the application of the proposed prototype to several construction projects, its efficacy in comprehensively assessing the related risks is delineated. The developed prototype offers the following contributions: (1) compilation of all the essential risk parameters in relation to such operations, (2) identification of all the potential safety risks threatening the workers, (3) analyzing and evaluating the identified safety risks, and (4) automating the exhausting and prone-error procedure of the related safety risk assessment procedure. The developed KBDSS-SRA assists the concerned safety decision-makers in making wise decisions towards improving the safety issues of such operations, by illustrating the criticality of safety risks and the strategies to control them in the future through a smart computerized tool.

With the above in mind, all the developed models in this dissertation can help the concerned decision-makers to make sagacious and wise decisions in the process of decision-making related to tower crane operations, improving the well-being of the crew members embroiled in the related operations.