Data-Driven Investigation into Causes of Collapse in Scaffolds

摘要

This work presents an investigation into the causes of collapse in scaffolds. The study was performed by identifying the prevalence of common scaffold design and construction attributes (such as those related to the geometry and construction of a scaffold or applied loads) during collapse and studying any correlations between these attributes and the number of scaffold collapses over several years. The data on scaffold collapse were gathered from those published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Using these data, the causes of collapse were classified into several categories, and scaffold attributes prevalent in collapse within each category were examined. This classification was further refined into two main categories of collapses resulting from (1) improper design or (2) construction errors. The comparison of failure data for these two categories determined that the improper design of scaffolds causes approximately 50% more collapses than construction errors.