Tampere University of Technology News
Although electrical professionals are aware of electrical shock and arc hazards, even they suffer from electrical accidents. Most of the accidents occur because certain safety procedures have not been made prior to work, but underlying behind these omissions are hurry and various organizational causes. In her doctoral dissertation Tuuli Tulonen has examined electrical accident risks of electrical professionals. The public defence of the dissertation will be held on December 17th, 2010.
In her dissertation Tulonen presents the most typical factors that lie behind the immediate causes of electrical accidents. In addition, she has created an electrical accident sequence model, which is based on the research results. In electrical accident investigation the model may be used to direct the attention of the investigation more efficiently towards underlying risks.
- Also accident prevention efforts are more effective when directed to the source, the reasons why hazardous working methods are applied, says Tulonen.
The starting point of the research was the knowledge that most electrical professionals’ electrical accidents occur because of failure to de-energize, test or earth. During the research electrical professionals recognized that the omission of safety procedures is most often due to hurry. Hurry is a complex phenomenon, but most often hurry was seen to be caused by organizational problems, such as problems in planning and execution of work. Hurry was also seen as the biggest electrical safety risk.
- Besides hurry, various unintentional and intentional human causes were often mentioned as the reason why safety procedures are omitted. Also, e.g. the size and sector of the employer organization as well as the respondent's age had an effect on some of the responses as to what are perceived as the biggest problems affecting electrical safety, states Tulonen.
The results offer information on e.g. what causes hurry. In addition, the results may be used as basis for discussions concerning how the identified electrical accident risks may be eliminated.
Public defence of the doctoral dissertation on Friday, December 17th, 2010
The dissertation ”Electrical Accident Risks in Electrical Work” by Tuuli Tulonen from the area of occupational safety engineering is to be presented with due permission for public examination and criticism in the Festia building, Small auditorium 1, at Tampere University of Technology, on the 17th of December, at 12 noon (Korkeakoulunkatu 8, Tampere).
The opponents are professor Seppo Väyrynen (University of Oulu) and docent, Dr. Tech. Veikko Rouhiainen (VTT). The custos is professor Kaija Leena Saarela from the Center for Safety Management and Engineering at Tampere University of Technology’s Department of Industrial Management.
The dissertation project was executed while Tuuli Tulonen (34) was working as a research scientist at Tampere University of Technology’s Center for Safety Management and Engineering. She is now working at the Safety Technology Authority (Tukes).
Contact: Tuuli Tulonen (Tel. +358 50 526 0862, firstname.lastname@tut.fi)