A identification method for critical causes of lifting injuries based on topological potential

In view of the deficiency that the traditional importance ranking method cannot be used to objectively and comprehensively evaluate the importance of the causes of hoisting injuries, an importance ranking method based on topological potential is proposed by using complex network theory and field theory in physics. First, the causes of 385 reported lifting injuries are divided into 36 independent causes at four levels through a systematic analysis approach, and the relationships among these causes are obtained through the Delphi method. Then, the accident causes are treated as nodes, and the relationships among the causes are used as edges to establish a network model of the causes of lifting accidents. The out-degree and in-degree topological potential of each node are calculated, and an importance ranking of lifting injuries causes is obtained. Finally, based on 11 evaluation indexes commonly used to assess node importance (node degree, betweenness centrality, etc.), the ability of the method proposed in this paper to effectively identify the key nodes in the cause network of lifting accidents is verified, and the conclusions can guide the safe implementation of lifting operations.