Lu, Xueqing (2021) Examining safety behaviour on construction sites using virtual reality. PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the behaviour of people in relation to construction site hazards using virtual reality. The three broad areas of study are: Firstly, comparing the effect of the location of hazards and types of warnings on hazard identification and rate of safety violations. Secondly, comparing laptop screen and VR headset displays. Finally, investigating the effect of safe and unsafe co-worker examples on people's safety behaviours.This study used an eye-tracking virtual reality (VR) headset and an electroencephalograph (EEG) brain band to track people's gaze points and measure their brainwaves as they interact with a virtual construction site.This study identified the situations when bollards, warning signs, beeping sounds and verbal warnings should be used to protect people from injuries. A model of perception and decision-making processes for navigating a construction site was proposed. This model contains risk attitudes, behaviours, decisions and consequences based on the site layout, especially the warning systems, and co-worker behaviours. It is also suggested that a VR application should have a desktop version for better accessibility, and that VR hardware should be selected to fit the specific situation.A limitation of this study is that the participants were Australian Civil Engineering students, rather than, for example, construction site labourers.The novelty of this study is the way that eye-tracking, EEG and VR technologies have been combined to test the effectiveness of hazard controls on construction sites. This thesis not only contributes to safety management in the construction industry, but also helps to establish the fundamental design principles of VR construction simulators for training purposes.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Davis, Steven; Nezhad, Ali Akbar and Shen, Xuesong |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | accessibility; civil engineering; construction site; hazards; safety; site layout; training; virtual reality |
| Index terms: | safety management, violation, construction site, design principle, risk attitude, site layout, injury, construction industry, virtual reality, hardware, effectiveness, decision-making process, hazard identification, safety behaviour, accessibility |
| Subjects: | site logistics, financial risk, decision-making and reasoning, inclusive design, work location, design methods, computer hardware, virtual reality, industry analysis, regulatory law, occupational health and safety management, health conditions and diseases, decision analysis, performance management |
| Topics: | Quality Management, Legal Issues, Health and Safety, Risk Management, Design Practice, Digital Applications, Site Management, Research Practice, Cost Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here