Importance of Safety in Civil Engineering

My report is based on the topic safety engineering under the construction field as also known as civil engineering. First of all let me give you a brief description about engineering. Even though there are many definitions, simply engineering is science, innovation and technology with design, machines and structures. Engineering uses math, science, especially physics, chemistry and computing, electronics, to improve the world around us. Engineering is also quite clearly a problem-solving process. It clearly is made up of business organizations trading goods and services for money and they must make some profit to survive. Society needs and expects food, clothing, power supplies, shelter, transport systems, and accommodation and so on. All of these require an infrastructure of engineered products. The engineer has a different set of problems than that of the scientist. In planing and building a structure, for instance, the engineer has problems about which decisions must be made. If adequate data are not available then judgment and experience must be used to overcome the difficulty. Therefore there is no choice-a decision must be made. The research scientist is not forced to make practical decisions about matters that are both central to his purpose and highly uncertain. For the engineer, experience and judgment must take over when scientific knowledge fails.

We know that there are so many engineering fields, such as Electronic, Electrical, Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Marine, Mining, CS, Environmental, Textile and so on. Mainly electronic and electrical fields deal with electricity so obviously they are hazardous; in addition, chemical engineering field deals with chemicals; in fact, there may be threats for the physical health conditions. In construction fields obviously there are so many hazards. As Sri Lankans, we know that Sri Lanka is a developing country therefore basically construction field plays a major role in engineering fields in Sri Lanka. In addition, according to my opinion it is one of the most unsafe engineering fields in the world. Therefore it is better to talk safety about in civil engineering.

Construction engineering field basically works with building roads, dams, airports, bridges, railways, and so on. And also, we know that literally it is about civil engineering. Civil engineering influences a large number of our every day things. The structures we live in and work in, the transportation offices we use, that are important to our safety are some of them. Civil engineers measure and map the earth’s surface, design and supervise the construction of bridges, tunnels, highways, and airports, build river navigation, provide plants and systems for water supply. Therefore it is clear that civil engineers are in risk of doing mostly unsafe constructions. Our developments, while they might be essentially for safe house or transportation. Thus, bridges have geometrical designs intended to support weight. Civil engineering is considerably more than raising high rises or scaffolds. Most water treatment is structured and developed by civil engineers.

Let move on to the term safety. What is safety? Basically safety is the condition of being protected from harm; and also recognizing hazards in tolerable risk levels as well as situations. We know that Engineering is obviously a practical subject. Therefore, it is clear as engineers they should have to face hazards; in fact, it could be worse. Therefore, considering safety is a must in engineering disciplines. When dealing with the subject of safety in the engineering context, we may loosely divide it into two aspects – safety at the workplace and a career as a safety engineering professional – though the two are closely interlinked. Safety engineering aims to manage risk in the workplace by eliminating or reducing it to acceptable levels. As its name implies, safety engineering is about reducing failure, it so that the consequences will not be life-threatening.

Let we consider about the importance of risk management in safety engineering. As we talking about civil engineering; therefore, we will mainly talk about risk management in civil engineering field. Risk Management is a deliberate way to look at zones of risk in a certain project deliberately and decide how each ought to be dealt with. It is an administration apparatus that points to recognize the wellsprings of hazard and vulnerability, to decide their effect and to create reactions to the heading. A well ordered evaluation of risk management has been divided into four. Classification of risks, pointing out of risks, risk analysis and risk response. Pointing out of risk figures out what could happen that could influence the task goals and how these things can occur. The benefits of the procedure of risk management process improvement and the executives of construction projects and the effective utilization of resources. For construction projects, there are lot of number of features of hazards and misfortunes just as the unpredictable connections that impact it. Convoluted connections incorporate direct, indirect, obvious, suggested or unforeseeable dangers. Quality goals, destinations of time, cost targets are the three destinations of the venture the executives. In the construction project, the point of time is intently and inseparably connected to the objective expense. Subsequently the hazard and misfortune the board of the development time frame is a key component in the administration of construction risks or risks. Before risk can be managed clearly, it must first be identified. Then described, after that evaluated it.

When consider about the types of risks in engineering, obviously financial risks and the environmental risks are the main two parts; in addition, risks of accidents, risks of resources and so on. Risks in accidents is could be a physical harm. Ultimately probably risks tend to project fail with achieving nothing. Considering about the more about civil engineering, obviously there are some special fields which are based on construction field or the basically civil engineering. By the type of task, type of work, these specialties are divided. Construction, structural, transportation, environmental, geotechnical and so on, are some of the special fields that are based on civil engineering.

In construction engineering, basically construction engineering is designing and working with structures such as bridges, frame of the buildings, towers and so on. So obviously risk of hazards is too high. Construction engineers work in under construction work places, therefore risk is high. For example situation, working on high level of a building, employees may be get slipped and fell down; and also may be some tool will fall down, in those cases it could be end up with departure from life or being differentiable; therefore for prevent from that kind of instances using a safety net is a better solution; in addition, workers should wear safety helmets all the time.

The wealth of traveling options we enjoy today have been provided by transportation engineering. Transportation engineers do analysis, design and construct transportation systems by using scientific principles and technology, such as, highways, railways, subways which require tunneling and so on. So in this field it is clear that those are hazardous; and also, it is obvious that constructions in subway has the highest risk in hazards among them for it mainly requires tunneling. So we know that there are sudden earthquakes, therefore there could be sudden collapse in tunnels which will give very bad consequences. Most of the time ended up by departure from lives. So employees should have to know about the situation of that times; and also, the supervisors should inform the workers all the time.

In overall to avoid from hazards, use safety equipment is a better solution for all specified fields. Safety equipment, gloves, safety helmets, safety boots, masks, safety ear covers and so on. By using those safety equipment appropriately it is easy overcome from hazards; in addition, employees must be well trained; and also, always mind the surroundings for reduce the risk of hazards.

In conclusion we know now that what is engineering and what is safety. So obviously there can not be engineering without safety, in my opinion safety is a must fact. As to end up my report based on the topic, Safety Engineering, I would like to write the summary first, and then next the conclusions briefly hereby. As mentioned earlier, according to the topic, first I gave the definitions about what is engineering, and what is the main role of engineers. Then I described about, what is meant by the term safety, its definitions and so on. After that how safety is related to Engineering subject was discussed. Since there are number of different Engineering fields throughout the world at the present, Civil Engineering was selected under the above mentioned topic. Thereby what is Civil Engineering was described, together with the reasons why I selected it. From the engineering field selection on wards I described its situations which are dangerous, harmful and hazardous, and then what are the results when not having proper safety management, and how to get a risk in handling safety methods in every random hazardous situation.

Summary will be as follows. We need to consider the safety side mostly in the practical field. Since Engineering is totally a practical field, it is obvious that safety disciplines are needed to be considered. The more the practical situations in the field, the more to care about safety. Therefore, in civil engineering the safety must be highly cared, since it is more related to the living beings and the environmental, directly and vastly. There are so many ways and methods in order to have a good safety management. This not only on the hands of engineers but also the laborers and workers should have the responsibility in order to consider about the safety. Then it would be helpful in minimizing accidents and other harmful results, and to have better engineering aspects. As safety is the first of all, according to my point of view, safety engineering is a time effective and an important topic.