Occupational health and safety measures to be taken in construction laboratories

Advances in science and engineering research have increased the safety risk in laboratories as laboratories in universities are used more by students and academics for research purposes. Due to this increased use in recent times, accidents have occurred frequently in laboratories. Accidents that occur in laboratories have caused injuries and even deaths to laboratory personnel, students and academicians, damage to expensive experimental equipment and buildings, and loss of valuable scientific data. For this reason, it is essential to determine and analyze the causes of accidents that occur in laboratories, and to conduct detailed risk analysis to prevent these accidents and reduce the consequences of accidents. As a result of literature research, it has been determined that very few risk analysis studies have been conducted in civil engineering structural laboratories where academic teaching and experimental research are conducted. For this reason, the research was conducted in a civil engineering structural laboratory. This research aims to determine the hazards and risks that may cause accidents in the laboratory and to offer suggestions for preventing accidents. Direct observations were made to determine the risks and dangers in the structural laboratory. During the observation phase, the laboratory environment, activities in the laboratory, and equipment used were taken into consideration. As a result of the observation, many risk factors were determined in the laboratory. When these observations were evaluated, the most common risk factors were identified as the lack of personal protective equipment used by laboratory workers during work, lack of knowledge about the chemicals used in experiments, and hazards resulting from improper use of the experimental device. A list of the risks identified in the construction laboratory was created and a risk assessment was performed using the L-type matrix method, one of the quantitative risk assessment methods. As a result of the assessment, applicable recommendations were determined to increase occupational health and safety in the laboratory. Laboratory safety training should be provided to personnel working in the construction laboratory of civil engineering at the beginning of each academic year before they start working in the laboratory, and the awareness of researchers about the hazards and risks found in the laboratory can be increased with practical training, thus reducing the possibility of accidents in the laboratory.