Osha, Brick Industry Join Forces On Ergonomics

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Brick Industry Association (BIA) have formed an alliance to focus on reducing ergonomic-related

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Brick Industry Association (BIA) have formed an alliance to focus on reducing ergonomic-related injuries and preventing exposure to workplace hazards. Accordingly, OSHA and BIA will collaborate in providing the association’s members and others with information, guidance, and training resources to protect workers’ health and safety.

The Alliance calls for both organizations to share information among OSHA personnel and industry safety and health professionals regarding BIA’s best practices and effective approaches. Additionally, the Alliance promotes and encourages BIA members’ participation in OSHA’s cooperative programs such as the Voluntary Protection Programs, the On-site Consultation Program, and its Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program. Moreover, both organizations will speak, exhibit or appear at conferences, local meetings, and other events, including BIA’s Brick Show, as well as develop information on recognition and prevention of workplace hazards while providing expertise in communicating their findings to brick industry employers and employees.

Notes BIA President and CEO Richard Jennison, The brick industry is pleased to collaborate with OSHA on the development and communication of Îbest practicesÌ in such important areas of employee health and safety as ergonomics and silica. This should facilitate a constructive dialogue, resulting in a heightened knowledge level for brick production employees in these areas.

Contest centers on seismic motion-exposed building sample

In partnership with the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) School of Engineering and George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Consortium, Inc. (NEESinc), Portland Cement Association conducted a blind prediction contest to measure building responses to tests on a full scale, seven-story reinforced concrete building section. The tests were performed on the new NEES Large High-Performance Outdoor Shake Table Û the first assembly of its kind and largest such table outside Japan Û at UCSD’s Engelkirk Structural Engineering Center. The building slice was subjected to increasing intensity of uniaxial earthquake ground motions from October 2005 until January 2006. Researchers designed the building slice using a displacement-based and capacity approach with design lateral forces significantly smaller that those currently required by U.S. building codes.

The competition was open to the practicing structural engineering community, the academic and research community (including graduate students), and the undergraduate engineering student community (with graduate student or faculty advisors). Participants’ predictions will be compared against measurements during experimental testing. All entries were scheduled to reviewed at a technical session during the early summer NEES Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Û http://nees.ucsd.edu/7Story.html