Life cycle environmental impact assessment to manage and optimize construction waste using Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Energy consumption by and emissions from buildings contribute greatly to environmental degradation. Currently, an important tool in the study of architectural conservation design is LCA (life-cycle assessment), with the goal of minimizing energy consumption and environmental impact. The research suggests a method to apply LCA analysis and BIM technology to design 3D BIM models and define the relationship between BIM elements and architectural materials. The obvious advantages of combining BIM with LCA have resulted in its wide use for building life cycle assessment. The study propose here quantitative analysis of environmental impact by construction and build an index database for environmental impact assessment of building projects based on analytical hierarchy process. The design plan of the Teaching and Research Building of a University in Nanjing China is taken as the example to calculate energy consumption in response models formed from construction data. From these modeled calculations, then the key environmental impact factors were analyzed. The objective is to suggest an integrated solution to BIM-based environmental impact assessment of building construction and also provide a theoretical support for optimized building design. This case study demonstrates the utility of BIM when performing LCA, providing most of the information needed to perform LCA.

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Green Template for Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings Based on Building Information Modeling: Focus on Embodied Environmental Impact

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su71215830 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (12) ◽

pp. 16498-16512 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Sungwoo Lee ◽

Sungho Tae ◽

Seungjun Roh ◽

Taehyung Kim

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Environmental Impact ◽

Building Information Modeling ◽

Information Modeling ◽

Building Information

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Development of Building Information Modeling Template for Environmental Impact Assessment

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13063092 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 3092

Author(s):

Sungwoo Lee ◽

Sungho Tae ◽

Hyungjae Jang ◽

Chang U. Chae ◽

Youngjin Bok

Keyword(s):

Environmental Impact ◽

Performance Assessment ◽

Environmental Performance ◽

Building Materials ◽

Building Information Modeling ◽

Information Modeling ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Building Information ◽

Environmental Performance Assessment ◽

Assessment Results

Eco-friendly building designs that use building information modeling (BIM) have become popular, and a variety of eco-friendly building assessment technologies that take advantage of BIM are being developed. However, existing building environmental performance assessment technologies that use BIM are linked to external assessment tools, and there exist compatibility issues among programs; it requires a considerable amount of time to address these problems, owing to the lack of experts who can operate the programs. This study aims to develop eco-friendly templates for assessing the embodied environmental impact of buildings using BIM authoring tools as part of the development of BIM-based building life cycle assessment (LCA) technologies. Therefore, an embodied environmental impact unit database was developed, for major building materials during production and operating stages, to perform embodied environmental impact assessments. Moreover, a major structural element library that uses the database was developed and a function was created to produce building environmental performance assessment results tables, making it possible to review the eco-friendliness of buildings. A case study analysis was performed to review the feasibility of the environmental performance assessment technologies. The results showed a less than 5% effective error rate in the assessment results that were obtained using the technology developed in this study compared with the assessment results based on the actual calculation and operating stage energy consumption figures, which proves the reliability of the proposed approach.

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Integration of Emergy Analysis with Building Information Modeling

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13147990 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 7990

Author(s):

Suman Paneru ◽

Forough Foroutan Jahromi ◽

Mohsen Hatami ◽

Wilfred Roudebush ◽

Idris Jeelani

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle ◽

Building Materials ◽

Building Information Modeling ◽

Energy Analysis ◽

Information Modeling ◽

Environmental Cost ◽

Emergy Analysis ◽

Modeling Tools ◽

Building Information

Traditional energy analysis in Building Information Modeling (BIM) only accounts for the energy requirements of building operations during a portion of the occupancy phase of the building’s life cycle and as such is unable to quantify the true impact of buildings on the environment. Specifically, the typical energy analysis in BIM does not account for the energy associated with resource formation, recycling, and demolition. Therefore, a comprehensive method is required to analyze the true environmental impact of buildings. Emergy analysis can offer a holistic approach to account for the environmental cost of activities involved in building construction and operation in all its life cycle phases from resource formation to demolition. As such, the integration of emergy analysis with BIM can result in the development of a holistic sustainability performance tool. Therefore, this study aimed at developing a comprehensive framework for the integration of emergy analysis with existing Building Information Modeling tools. The proposed framework was validated using a case study involving a test building element of 8’ × 8’ composite wall. The case study demonstrated the successful integration of emergy analysis with Revit®2021 using the inbuilt features of Revit and external tools such as MS Excel. The framework developed in this study will help in accurately determining the environmental cost of the buildings, which will help in selecting environment-friendly building materials and systems. In addition, the integration of emergy into BIM will allow a comparison of various built environment alternatives enabling designers to make sustainable decisions during the design phase.

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