Investigating the Effect of using Modern Scaffolding in Reducing the Risk of Construction Accidents Based on Risk Assessment with a Fuzzy Approach

Today, construction accidents, especially falls from scaffolding or overturning of scaffolding, are considered one of the most important problems in developing countries. These incidents have many adverse economic, social and environmental consequences. The current study was to investigate the effect of using new Ringlock scaffolding in reducing the risk of construction accidents based on risk assessment with a fuzzy approach.Methods: For risk assessment, failure mode analysis and its effects (FMEA) method was used in combination with the theory of intuitive fuzzy sets (IFS) (IFS-FMEA). First, the potential failures of two scaffolding systems were identified using experts' opinions. Then the FMEA parameters or risk criteria, including the probability of failure occurrence, the probability of failure detection, and the severity of the consequence, were redefined based on a seven-point language scale by incorporating the fuzzy approach. Each linguistic term was associated with an intuitive triangular fuzzy set. Opinions about the risk criteria for each of the identified failures were collected from a panel of experts and integrated using the similarity aggregation method and de-fuzzified using the center of gravity approach. Finally, from the product of the values of the risk criteria, the risk priority number (RPN) was calculated for each of the identified failures of the scaffolding and compared using statistical methods, and the effect of using the new scaffolding in reducing the risk of falling accidents and scaffold collapse was determined.