Determination of priorities for management to reduce collapse accident of open excavation and road sink in urban areas

The collapse accidents during a open ground excavation in urban areas not only lead to human injuries and material damages in the construction site, but also lead to road sinks and damages to the adjacent facilities due to settlement of ground around the construction site. Therefore, during a open ground excavation in the urban areas, it is necessary to thoroughly prepare for prevention of collapse accidents, and consider whole construction stage such as planning, design and construction. In this study, the priorities to be managed mainly were obtained in order to prevent collapse accidents during a open ground excavation. After analyzing results from past accidents cases for open ground excavations, priorities were evaluated regarding collapse-inducing elements using the Delphi technique which is a decision-making method by consensus among experts. As a result, insufficient groundwater treatment, bad geotechnical investigation and instability on construction, etc. were obtained as priorities for prevention of collapse accidents.