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Statistical Analysis of Occupational Safety Management in Jordan

Researches & Papers, Engineering Management


These days, the confused world economy and the plummeting sales brought the reduction of hidden cost into picture. During crises, companies downsize their budgets and the failure to maintain proper safety procedures will increase risk levels. The fear of loosing jobs will put a severe stress and distractions among employees. On the mean while, workers’ compensation will intensify the unexpected costs on the overwhelmed organizations. As results, the latest global recession has an influential impact on the developed countries. The migration of the global companies towards different geographical locations around the globe, the needs for new markets, or less expensive labor force will make these countries a target to minimize the manufacturing cost. The presence of statistical records, laws, and procedures will stimulate global organizations to invest in these countries. On the other hand, absent of effective legislations related to safe work environments will develop a serious obstacle for the economic growth. (USAID 2003). The need for a strategic safety management has raised a flag about the necessity of data gathering of work incidents. The stochastic scenario of the occupational accidents and the management by fact principle will set the rule for a long-term and reality- base strategic planning for a safe work environment. In most developed countries, workers are under a heavy pressure of low market demand and their safety has not been given a great attention (USAID 2005; ACILS 2005). In some instant, a safe work place has been considered a luxury and nonessential gratuity (Zacharatos, et al 2005). The idea of a hazards free place has not been developed yet by top management and official policies. (FIAS 2008). Some local cultures influence occupational safety practice, since few workers deal with machines as heroes and the “accident-proof” believes are still dominant behavior. (AFL-CIO & NTA 2006; WHO 2003).


Occupational safety is one of the most challenging difficulties that face the developed countries. The lack of national statistical data about work injuries originates a confrontation with globalization. With the progress and development of industrial cities, Jordan is one of the developed countries that break the chain. Governmental agencies to monitor the occupational safety have been established and new laws and safety procedures have been legislated. In this paper, a guide line is proposed for an occupational safety management based on statistical analysis. The subjected approach outlines a sequence of steps to decrease work injuries and increase employees’ performance accordingly. The observed trend of statistics can be implemented to develop a general policy that targets the most frequent injuries and their causes


For most developed countries, the importance of strategic safety programs based on statistical data is imminent. It’s essential for any safety program to have measurable accountability systems that maintain the safety culture viable. Statistical safety parameters should be gathered to map out hazard situations through a clear safety measures. Risks involved with these hazards should be evaluated to pinpoint and prioritize the critical or potential risk consequences. By investigating the cause and effect of the most frequent hazards, formative actions should be taken in order to eliminate or mitigate hazards as possible. Once the desired level of safety has been achieved, a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely program should be legislated. Organizations should be committed and held accountable for the safety programs, goals, and standards. By analyzing the performance against the updated standards, goals, and legislations, the survey of the past events will provide an objective means to identify areas of progress as well as areas that need improvement. The review process will make the standards of the safety program more specific, and as a result the safety policy will be more accountable. Since the review is a standard tool for measuring and maintaining or correcting behaviors, it is best to evaluate performance periodically.


Mohammad Mansour, [email protected], Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Applied Science University, Jordan. Iyad M. Muslih, [email protected], Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Applied Science University, Jordan. W

Evaluating Thermal Performance of Solar Cookers under Jordanian Climate

Researches & Papers, Mechanical Engineering


Due to the high increase in the prices of fuel and energy, the search for alternative cheaper source of energy is of necessity. Therefore, solar energy is becoming a viable option. Solar cookers are rather important applications in thermal solar energy conversion. The use of solar cooker for cooking purposes is spreading widely in most developing countries and in particular in villages and remote areas. The solar cooker must be high quality, affordable, user friendly, light weight, stackable and a family size. Current designs of solar cookers normally used are box cookers, concentrators, and flat plate collector cookers. The basic purpose of a solar box cooker is to heat things up - cook food, purify water, and sterilize instruments. A solar box cooks because the interior of the box is heated by the energy of the sun. Sunlight enters the solar box through the glass. It turns to heat energy when absorbed by the dark absorber plate and cooking pots. This heat input causes the temperature inside of the solar box cooker to rise until the heat loss of the cooker is equal to the solar heat gain. Temperatures sufficient for cooking food and pasteurizing water are easily achieved. As the density and weight of the materials within the insulated shell of a solar box cooker increase, the capacity of the box to hold heat increases. The interior of a box including heavy materials such as rocks, bricks, heavy pans, water, or heavy foods will take longer to heat up because of this additional heat storage capacity. The incoming energy is stored as heat in these heavy materials and the air in the box. The important parts of a hot box solar cooker include a) outer box: made of galvanized iron or aluminum sheet, b) inner cooking box: made from aluminum sheet and coated with black paint so as to easily absorb solar radiation and transfer the heat to the cooking pots, c) thermal insulator: The space between the outer and inner box is packed with insulating material such as glass wool pads to reduce heat losses from the cooker, d) mirror: used in a solar cooker to increase the radiation input on the absorbing space and fixed on the inner side of the main cover of the box. This radiation is in addition to the radiation entering the box directly and helps to quicken the cooking process by raising the inside temperature of the cooker, e) cooking containers: generally made of aluminum or stainless steel. These pots are also painted black on the outer surface so that they also absorb solar radiation directly. The main objective of this present work is to investigate two designs of solar coolers. Figure 1 presents two designs of solar cookers under investigation. Also, evaluate the various parameters affecting cookers performance under different modes of operation such as at fixed position and moving on a tracking system. Experimental work and validation of mathematical modeling are carried out and compared. An overview and up to date literature will be presented.


This study presented a short review on the solar cooker designs and applications. Two designs of cookers were tested. The first type has a painted black base and second has internal reflecting mirrors. These designs were examined under two modes of operations: at fixed position and on tracking system. The cooker at a fixed position had recorded thermal efficiencies ranging from 17 % to a sharp peak of 41.2% at the maximum solar intensity of the day around 11-12 am with an average overall efficiency around 27.6%. Whereas, cooker with internal reflecting mirrors installed on a sun tracking system gave higher water and pot temperatures, and thermal efficiency ranged from 25.3% to 53.1% with an average overall efficiency around 40.6 %. Cookers installed on sun tracking system had the advantage of maintaining a higher and closer range of thermal efficiencies through the daylight than the ones at fixed positions.


After conducting statistical analysis on the data obtained from the cookers, It is clear that both types of cookers (black coated and internal reflecting mirrors) at fixed position gave similar thermal performance where the averaged water and pot temperatures were close within ±7% margin of error. The cookers thermal efficiencies at a fixed position ranges from 12 % to an increasing sharp peak of 41.2% at the maximum solar intensity of the day around 11-12 am with an average overall efficiency around 27.6%. Whereas, cooker with internal reflecting mirrors installed on a sun tracking system gave higher water and pot temperatures, and thermal efficiency ranged from 25.3% to 53.1% with an average overall efficiency around 40.6 %. Cookers installed on sun tracking system had the advantage of maintaining a higher and closer range of thermal efficiencies through the daylight than the ones at fixed positions.


Mazen M. Abu-Khader, Mohammed Abu Hilal, Salah Abdallah, and Omar Badran

Life Cycle Costing for a Near Zero Energy Building in Jordan Initial Study

Researches & Papers, Energy


Jordan has limited fossil energy sources. The country is considered as an emerging growing consumer of energy, in equivalence to South and East European countries (UNDP 2016). The use of fossil fuel in Jordan depends completely on imported gas and oil from neighboring countries. Rapid growth in population and urbanization is fueling high growth in energy consumption. Most parts of the world are witnessing a steady decline in the intensity of primary energy consumption since 1980, but Jordan is observing opposite trend and its primary energy consumption is growing faster than GDP (RECREEE 2016). Such high growth in energy intensity will have a significant impact on the country’s economic competitiveness, by requiring more than 3 percent of GDP for energy infrastructure investment by 2030, versus 1 percent for the rest of the world (McNichol 2016). Residential buildings, in particular, are major consumers of energy in Jordan with an Energy usage patterns are somewhat different compared to many Western countries (Jaber, J. O., et al. 2004). In Jordan, up to 21 of final energy consumption and 42 percent of electrical energy demand is in the residential sector (Al-Salaymeh et al. 2016, Al-Sallami 2015). On the other side, solar energy is one of the most promising renewable resources in Jordan. The average annual total irradiation is 2080 kWh/m2 per annum with approximately 300 sunny days (Etier et al 2010). Since issuing the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law No. 13 of 2012, Jordan opened a new era in the RE and EE, a changing point directly related to this law is the ability to sell electricity production to electricity companies with referenced pricing already set. A target of 10% renewable energy input into the energy mix by 2020 is set in the National Energy Strategy, mainly aiming for about 1000MW of Wind and 600MW Solar, currently, renewable energy projects in Jordan contribute 3-4 percent to the national electricity grid. Household energy consumption in Jordan depends on its particular climate and geographical location, construction technology, building characteristics and occupant behavior. The breakdown of domestic energy consumption has been estimated by several studies (Al-Sallami 2015) and is dominated mainly by heating, water heating, and air conditioning. Theoretically, all new buildings in Jordan must comply with the insulation requirements of the Jordanian Thermal Insulation Code (JNBC 2009). In average the Jordanian authority issues annually 15000 construction permit equivalent to 10 Million square meters, in 2015 the number reached 13 Million with 83% as a residential area with 46% of the new construction located in Amman (Jordan Department of Statistics 2015). However, there is a discrepancy between the compliance drawings and the construction and there is hardly any number that documents the percentage of compliance, as built, and the construction quality. Nevertheless, energy efficiency programs hold great promise to reduce energy consumption in the region. As a response to the previously mentioned contradicting facts, it is of the utmost urgency that the new building stock gets designed and constructed to meet national and international obligations to reduce the emission of CO2 and even achieve an annual zero or nearly energy performance (Biggs, 2005 and Green Peace 2013). New construction adding 4-5% to the building stock in Jordan each year, it should comply with local standards and apply bioclimatic design and energy efficiency measures to achieve zero or nearly zero energy balance depending on the climatic regions of Jordan (Johansson and Ouahrani, D. 2009) and (Attia 2016). Similar to Northern Mediterranean countries and with the assistance of active solar systems the building stock can easily achieve the zero energy objectives due to a match between electric/thermal solar energy supply and cooling/ heating demand. Therefore, this study is significant to expand the architects and engineers bank of ideas, broaden the range of choices and allows assessing their sensitivity. Thus to put the near Zero Energy Building (nZEB) Concept in the regional context and better adapt it to the local traditional architectural practice. The cost of the net zero energy objective depends on numerous factors including the current state of building design, local construction practices in the construction sector, availability of materials, and legal and regularity concerns. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the cost-effectiveness of near zero energy buildings in Jordan. The objective is to assess cost-effective building strategies and design scenarios that will lead to a successful near Zero Energy Buildings. By assessing the cost effectiveness of near Zero energy buildings we intend to mark up the economic benefits, identify and analyze the energy efficiency potential to inform the debate on environmental and governmental policy intervention on a national level


Green Building movement has grown in Jordan for the last 10 year for environmental and financial reasons directly related to energy consumption and cost. Despite the few success stories, green design and green buildings are not yet the norm in the building sector in the country. One main concern for design engineers as well as investors and building owners is the extra cost green building will bring compared to traditional one. This assumption is wrong since a building cost should be analyzed through its life cycle, which not only include design and construction but also operation and maintenance costs as well. Since issuing the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law No. 13 of 2012, Jordan opened a new era in the RE and EE, a changing point directly related to this law is the ability to sell electricity production to electricity companies and not only being consumers. The building sector is a direct winner if designers and engineers make right decisions. An ambitious but possible goal is to design and build Net Zero Buildings, which are buildings that produce energy as much as they consume. The aim of this paper is to provide real life cost-effective building strategies and design scenarios that will lead to a successful near Zero Energy Building in Jordan. The paper will use a representative residential apartment in the city of Amman (135- 150 m2) as the base case for the study. The design will be upgraded to include main green building strategies recommended for the climatic zone, provide loads for required systems, and test them all against performance and cost. Design scenarios will be tested and refined tell reach the best design formula that will be both functional and cost effective. The paper will provide a list of recommendations for best economically feasible design solutions and system selections that can lead to a near Zero Energy Building in Jordan for residential apartments.


This paper aimed to provide real life cost-effective building strategies and design scenarios that lead to a successful near Zero Energy Building in Jordan’s residential multi-family apartment building stock. The study tested several design improvements to the base case building and explained how the additional initial cost of the selected strategies is eliminated by the reduction of energy cost and the increasing of comfort quality. The selection of an existing residential typology created some limitations regarding the selected strategies, for example, it did not allow some bioclimatic measures such as urban setting, orientation, form and window to wall ratio to be tested but, it allows us to focus on improving important elements such as the building envelope’s thermal characteristics. To introduce design strategies for code compliance case, we focused on the following major strategies: improving the envelope conductivity (U-value), controlling air infiltration, avoiding thermal bridges and controlling condensation according to the mandatory requirement of the 2009 Jordanian Thermal Insulation Code as well as fulfilling the illumination intensity as per the Efficient Building Code and installing solar thermal collectors for DHW as per Amman Municipality requirement. The test of the nZEB was based on improving the code compliance case and introducing passive and active design strategies in order to achieve a near zero energy performance without compromising human comfort. The passive and active design strategies include improving thermal insulation, installing shading devices where needed, energy-efficient lighting systems and appliances, high-efficient double glazing, and photovoltaic panels. All these strategies are applicable but require skilled implementation on a construction site. To achieve a nZEB, the quality of the design and the construction should be carefully controlled. In Jordan the residential construction market is dominated by inexperienced project developers and non-qualified workers, this shall be overcome by training construction workers and regulate work for trained ones only. In the design stage, the architect should provide sufficient envelope details and material specifications and the site engineer shall control the implementation of the proper details and provide testing to elements such as insulation and air infiltration. The EUI for the base case was 85 kWh/m2.a with 30% thermal comfort achieved, while EUI for the Code compliance Case was 110 kWh/m2.a with 100% thermal Comfort, the nZEB had an EUI of 50 kWh/m2.a with 100% thermal Comfort all year round and a production of around 50% of its required energy. The initial LCC calculations indicate that on a 20-year time frame, the nZEB will be a better economical choice than the code compliance case. But, the study remains theoretical with certain limitations and uncertainty in LCC results. We explicitly focused on the energy and comfort potential of a nZEBs and started the cost implementations and calculations, an in-depth LCC will be the following future work for the authors to fully investigate the economical part of the study. Despite the fact that we based our base case on the results of 375 surveys distributed mainly in Amman and Zarqa to estimate the EUI in residential buildings (Al-Sallami 2015) we could not find any indication of fuel poverty. We doubt the average EUI for heating/cooling of 50 kWh/m2.a reported by Al-Sallami (2015) because our results indicate a low night time set back temperature of 16°C and 19°C during the day for the base case. One of the significant results of the study is that in the base case occupants control the range and values of heating set point values to reduce the energy consumption during winter. This means that the EUI value of 50 kWh/m2.a, for heating/cooling in Amman and Zarqa, is underestimated. In Jordan, there is still no standard method to assign the comfort and heating set point for residential buildings. Another advantage of the improving the comfort in the code complaint case is avoiding the use of the individual gas canisters heater that is a source of indoor combustion gasses such as carbon monoxide and particles (Jaber, 2002). Another point to raise is the scarcity of available area on shared roofs of residential buildings, limited areas are available to install TSH and PV for all apartment, solutions should be tested whether it be a canopy like PV structure that may provide shading as well or an integrated system within available elevation. The PV option is more beneficial in the case of individual residents (Villa type). The initial LCC results indicate the following: 1. There is no cost saving for code compliance case because there is serious fuel poverty and adapted occupant behavior to curb consumption. Improving the heated living space comfort requirements in the code complying case consequently increased the heating energy consumption by more than 70% for heating-dominated climate zone as we extended the comfort period. 2. Based on the previous initial findings, the nZEB objective is achievable but requires an upfront investment, adding the energy cost for the BC over 20 year period to its initial EE cost will exceed the sum of energy cost, EE, and RES for the nZEB case. 3. The compilation of the selected strategies for the nZEB case in addition to the strategies used in the Code Compliance case which included: Increasing thermal insulation and conductivity of building envelope, installing high-efficient double glazing windows, installing shading devices and using energy-efficient lighting systems and appliances as well as installing thermal solar water heater and 2KW PV system per apartment. The strategies were evaluated collectively and all calculations shown in the paper include all strategies. An in-depth study will be the following future work for the authors to fully investigate the economical part of the study as well evaluate the efficiency for each strategy and the limits and opportunities each strategy allows. 4. In the context of the previous initial findings, we can assess the nZEB objective potential in Jordan as achievable but a NZEB will be challenging due to limited available areas on the shared roof of residential buildings. The study results indicate that improving the envelope conductivity and airtightness and the use or RE can lead to huge heating load reduction and almost energy consumption neutrality. The climate of Jordan is relatively warm with abundant solar radiation so it is possible to reach almost zero heating demand. Therefore, it is coherent to improve the envelope performance. However, the cost of energy is relatively low compared to industrial countries that tax the fuel with environmental taxes. 5. The benefits of thermal or electric energy demand reduction and avoided air pollution were not expressed in monetary terms to internalize external costs and to provide an estimate of the overall environmental cost and benefit to society. Future research will include them in order to strengthen the case of nZEB. 6. We advise giving incentives to developers and building owners who target nZEB and to create a structured rating program focusing on Energy Efficiency in buildings. 7. We advise to revise the Jordanian energy standards and define a performance based minimum energy efficiency threshold and comfort conditions.


Dr. Shady Attia, Arch. Maysoon Al-Khuraissat