Life Cycle Analysis of Energy Efficient Measures in a Tropical Housing Design

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Duell ◽  
Lorien A. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Thermal Mass ◽  
Air Conditioner ◽  
Efficient Design ◽  
Housing Design ◽  
Tropical Conditions ◽  
Efficient Measures

Energy conservation has become an issue of global significance, which is a focus reflected in the Australian housing industry’s renewed emphasis on energy-efficient design. The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) has proposed to increase the stringency of the Building Code of Australia (BCA) to ensure the industry adopts energy efficient measures, including the enhancement of thermal performance and greater recognition of thermal mass in energy rating schemes. However, this proposal’s potential to effect energy savings in tropical housing is yet to be assessed. In order to determine its relative merits under tropical conditions, a standardised house design used in the Tiwi Islands of the Northern Territory (NT) was subjected to life cycle analysis, including analysis of embodied energy, the efficiency of energy saving measures and the resulting active energy consumption. This standardised house, like others in the NT, is designed for retrofitting within 10 years, which reduces the time available for savings in operational energy to exceed energy invested in installing these measures. Housing lifespan would, therefore, significantly impact upon potential benefits resulting from changes to the BCA. In addition, the spatial distances between population settlements in the NT greatly increases embodied energy values. It was found that adopting the proposed measures would result in an increase in energy efficiency through a reduction in the need for refrigerative air conditioner use, and that the embodied energy payback period would fall within the lifespan of the house. Therefore, for this specific tropical design, the BCA’s proposed measures for saving energy were found to be beneficial.

Eco-Audit and Environmental Impacts of Products

2016 ◽  
Vol 834 ◽  
pp. 34-39
Author(s):  
Cătălin Gheorghiță ◽  
Vlad Gheorghiță
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Water Usage ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Sustainability Criteria ◽  
Life Cycle Stages

Eco-audit is a tool to find the environmental impact of the product across all life cycle stages and for identify the problems in all aspects of a supply chain, from extraction of raw materials to manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal. The purpose of an analysis of a product is to establish the embodied energy, water usage, annual CO2 to atmosphere, carbon foot print, recycle fraction in current supply, toxicity, approximate processing energy and sustainability criteria. Knowledges to guide design decisions are needed to minimize or eliminate adverse eco-impacts. In eco-audit analysis, will be created material charts, processes selection and life cycle analysis allowing alternative design choices to meet the engineering requirements and reduce the environmental impact. The application presented in this paper uses only environmentally friendly properties of Ashby's database.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Energy Assessment of a School Building under Envelope Retrofit: An Approach towards Environmental Impact Reduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 03028
Author(s):  
Nazanin Moazzen ◽  
Mustafa Erkan Karagüler ◽  
Touraj Ashrafian
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
Cycle Phase ◽  
School Building ◽  
The Impact

Energy efficiency of existing buildings is a concept to manage and restrain the growth in energy consumption and one of the crucial issues due to the magnitude of the sector. Educational buildings are in charge of about 15% of the total energy consumption of the non-residential building sector. However, not only operational but also embodied energy of a building should be reduced to get the overall benefits of energy efficiency, where, using energy efficient architectural measures and low emitting materials during every retrofit action can be a logical step. The majority of buildings in Turkey and EU was built earlier than the development of the energy efficiency in the construction sector, hence, without energy retrofit, consume an enormous amount of energy that can be averted significantly by the implementation of some even not advanced retrofit measures. Furthermore, demolishing of a building to construct a new one is not a rational approach concerning cost, time and environmental pollution. The study has been focused on the impact assessment of the various architectural scenarios of energy efficiency upgrading on the Life Cycle Energy Consumption (LCEC) and Life Cycle CO2 (LCCO2) emission. Within the scope of the study, a primary school building is selected to be analysed. Through analysis, the total embodied and operational energy use and CO2 emission regarding the life cycle phase of the building is quantitatively defined and investigated in the framework of life cycle inventory. The paper concentrates on the operation and embodied energy consumption arising from the application of a variety of measures on the building envelope. An educational building with low LCCO2 emissions and LCEC in Turkey is proposed. To exemplify the approach, contributions are applied to a case study in Istanbul as a representative school building. The primary energy consumption of the case study building is calculated with a dynamic simulation tool, EnergyPlus. Afterwards, a sort of architectural energy efficient measures is implemented in the envelope while the lighting and mechanical systems remain constant. The energy used in the production and transportation of materials, which are the significant parts of the embodied energy, are taken into account as well.

Thermal issues

2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-295
Author(s):  
Rob Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Thermal Mass ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Housing Design ◽  
Building Physics ◽  
Typical Design

Max Fordham's perceptive comments (letters, arq 5/3) raise many interesting points on building physics and the environmental performance of buildings. Our article (arq 5/1) summarizes a research project that environmentally analyzed trends in Danish housing design. The results showed that the typical design strategies advocated by ‘traditional’ low-energy and passive housing design methods (large glass areas and heavy thermal mass) are not necessarily the most optimal. Such strategies only take account of the heating demand and do not use modern life-cycle analysis methodologies where the environmental impact of the building materials is also integrated.

scholarly journals An empirical study on life cycle assessment of double-glazed aluminium-clad timber windows

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 547-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asif M.
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Powder Coating ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful tool to determine the environmental performance of materials and products. The purpose of this paper is to undertake the LCA of double-glazed aluminium-clad timber windows in order to determine their environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach The scope of the LCA study covers the production and the use of windows over a 30-year life span. The LCA exercise has been carried out by auditing the materials and processes involved in the making of the windows. Windows production facilities were visited to investigate the respective quantities and embodied energy of the major constituting materials, i.e. timber, aluminium, glass, infill gases and auxiliary components. The main processes involved, i.e. powder coating of aluminium cladding profiles, glazing unit production and window assembly, were also examined. SimaPro software was used to calculate the environmental impacts associated with the windows for three types of glazing infills: Argon (Ar), Krypton (Kr) and Xenon (Xe). Findings Embodied energy of a standard sized (1.2 m×1.2 m) double-glazed aluminium-clad timber window is found to be 899, 1,402 and 5,400 MJ for Argon (Ar), Krypton (Kr) and Xenon (Xe) infill gases, respectively. It is also found that an Argon-filled window can lose 95,130 kWh of energy resulting into over 37,000 kg of CO2 emissions. Originality/value Besides carrying value for research community, the findings of this study can help the building and construction industry adopt windows that are energy-efficient and environmentally less burdensome. It can also help the concerned legislative bodied.

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