scholarly journals LCA-Based Investigation of Environmental Impacts for Novel Double-Beam Floor System Subjected to High Gravity Loads

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9193
Author(s):  
Insub Choi ◽  
JunHee Kim ◽  
DongWon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Structural Effect ◽  
Structural Systems ◽  
High Gravity ◽  
Underground Structures ◽  
Double Beam ◽  
Floor System

In populated downtown areas, a floor system with secured environmental performance is needed to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) and global warming problems related to buildings. This study aims to assess environmental impacts on a novel double-beam floor system subjected to high gravity loads. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to investigate the environmental impacts on the reduction in construction materials by calculating global warming potential (GWP) in the structural design phase. For different structural systems, the environmental performance was compared based on the GWP, and the contributions of structural elements to the GWP in each structural system were analyzed. The rotational constraints induced by the beam-end concrete panel can significantly reduce the GWP of the double-beam floor system by up to 13.8% compared to the conventional beam-girder system. Thus, the double-beam floor system reinforced with the concrete panel can be a candidate for eco-friendly structural systems in underground structures requiring high gravity loads. This result provides valuable findings that the structural effect on the rotational constraint of the concrete panel was quantitatively evaluated by converting it into an environmental impact.

scholarly journals Development of Optimal Design Method for Steel Double-Beam Floor System Considering Rotational Constraints

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 3266
Author(s):  
Insub Choi ◽  
Dongwon Kim ◽  
Junhee Kim
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Steel Beams ◽  
High Gravity ◽  
Double Beam ◽  
Iterative Analysis ◽  
Floor Systems ◽  
Optimal Design Method ◽  
Floor System

Under high gravity loads, steel double-beam floor systems need to be reinforced by beam-end concrete panels to reduce the material quantity since rotational constraints from the concrete panel can decrease the moment demand by inducing a negative moment at the ends of the beams. However, the optimal design process for the material quantity of steel beams requires a time-consuming iterative analysis for the entire floor system while especially keeping in consideration the rotational constraints in composite connections between the concrete panel and steel beams. This study aimed to develop an optimal design method with the LM (Length-Moment) index for the steel double-beam floor system to minimize material quantity without the iterative design process. The LM index is an indicator that can select a minimum cross-section of the steel beams in consideration of the flexural strength by lateral-torsional buckling. To verify the proposed design method, the material quantities between the proposed and code-based design methods were compared at various gravity loads. The proposed design method successfully optimized the material quantity of the steel double-beam floor systems without the iterative analysis by simply choosing the LM index of the steel beams that can minimize objective function while satisfying the safety-related constraint conditions. In particular, under the high gravity loads, the proposed design method was superb at providing a quantity-optimized design option. Thus, the proposed optimal design method can be an alternative for designing the steel double-beam floor system.

scholarly journals Influence of technical and electrical equipment in life cycle assessments of buildings: case of a laboratory and research building

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Hoxha ◽  
D. Maierhofer ◽  
M.R.M Saade ◽  
A. Passer
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Electrical Equipment ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Electronic Equipment ◽  
Detailed Result ◽  
Detailed Calculation ◽  
System Boundary ◽  
Operational Energy

Abstract Purpose A detailed assessment of the environmental impacts of the building requires a substantial amount of data that is time- and effort-consuming. However, limitation of the system boundary to certain materials and components can provide misleading impact calculation. In order to calculate the error gap between detailed and simplified assessments, the purpose of this article is to present a detailed calculation of the environmental impacts of the building by including in the system boundary, the technical, and electrical equipment. Method To that end, the environmental impacts of a laboratory and research building situated in Graz-Austria are assessed following the EN-15978 norm. Within the system boundaries of the study, the material and components of building fabric, technical, and electronic equipment for the building lifecycle stages of production, construction, replacement, operational energy and water, and end-of-life are considered. The input data regarding the quantity of materials is collected from the design and tendering documents, invoices, and from discussion with the head of the building’s construction site. Primary energy and global warming potential indicators are calculated on the basis of a functional unit of 1 m2 of energy reference area (ERA) per year, considering a reference building service life of 50 years. Results and discussion The primary energy indicator of the building is equal to 1698 MJ/m2ERA/year. The embodied impacts are found to be responsible for 28% of which 6.4% is due to technical and electronic equipment. Furthermore, the embodied impacts for the global warming potential, equal to 28.3 kg CO2e/m2ERA/year, are responsible for 73%. Together, technical and electrical equipment are the largest responsible aspects, accounting for 38% of the total impacts. Simplified and detailed result comparisons show a gap of 29% and 7.7% for global warming and primary energy indicators. These differences were from the embodied impacts and largely from the exclusion of electrical equipment from the study’s system boundary. Conclusions Technical and electrical equipment present a significant contribution to the overall environmental impacts of the building. Worthy of inclusion in the system boundary of the study, the environmental impacts of technical and electrical equipment must be calculated in detail or considered with a reliable ratio in the early design phase of the project. Further research is necessary to address the detailed impact calculation of the equipment and notably the minimization of their impacts.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Households in Santiago, Chile: Environmental Hotspots and Policy Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2525
Author(s):  
Camila López-Eccher ◽  
Elizabeth Garrido-Ramírez ◽  
Iván Franchi-Arzola ◽  
Edmundo Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Freshwater Eutrophication

The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts of household life cycles in Santiago, Chile, by household income level. The assessment considered scenarios associated with environmental policies. The life cycle assessment was cradle-to-grave, and the functional unit considered all the materials and energy required to meet an inhabitant’s needs for one year (1 inh/year). Using SimaPro 9.1 software, the Recipe Midpoint (H) methodology was used. The impact categories selected were global warming, fine particulate matter formation, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, mineral resource scarcity, and fossil resource scarcity. The inventory was carried out through the application of 300 household surveys and secondary information. The main environmental sources of households were determined to be food consumption, transport, and electricity. Food consumption is the main source, responsible for 33% of the environmental impacts on global warming, 69% on terrestrial acidification, and 29% on freshwater eutrophication. The second most crucial environmental hotspot is private transport, whose contribution to environmental impact increases as household income rises, while public transport impact increases in the opposite direction. In this sense, both positive and negative environmental effects can be generated by policies. Therefore, life-cycle environmental impacts, the synergy between policies, and households’ socio-economic characteristics must be considered in public policy planning and consumer decisions.

scholarly journals Assessing the long term effects on climate change of metallurgical slags valorization as construction material: a comparison between static and dynamic global warming impacts

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-111
Author(s):  
Andrea Di Maria ◽  
◽  
Annie Levasseur ◽  
Karel Van Acker ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Construction Material ◽  
Steel Slag ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Stainless Steel Slag ◽  
Environmental Evaluation

<abstract> <p>The interest in circular economy for the construction sector is constantly increasing, and Global Warming Potential (GWP) is often used to assess the carbon footprint of buildings and building materials. However, GWP presents some methodological challenges when assessing the environmental impacts of construction materials. Due to the long life of construction materials, GWP calculation should take into consideration also time-related aspects. However, in the current GWP, any temporal information is lost, making traditional static GWP better suited for retrospective assessment rather than forecasting purposes. Building on this need, this study uses a time-dependent GWP to assess the carbon footprint of two newly developed construction materials, produced through the recycling of industrial residues (stainless steel slag and industrial goethite). The results for both materials are further compared with the results of traditional ordinary Portland cement (OPC) based concrete, presenting similar characteristics. The results of the dynamic GWP (D_GWP) are also compared to the results of traditional static GWP (S_GWP), to see how the methodological development of D_GWP may influence the final environmental evaluation for construction materials. The results show the criticality of the recycling processes, especially in the case of goethite valorization. The analysis shows also that, although the D_GWP did not result in a shift in the ranking between the three materials compared with S_GWP, it provides a clearer picture of emission flows and their effect on climate change over time.</p> </abstract>

scholarly journals A Predictive Environmental Assessment Method for Construction Operations: Application to a Northeast China Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kailun Feng ◽  
Weizhuo Lu ◽  
Thomas Olofsson ◽  
Shiwei Chen ◽  
Hui Yan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Construction Operations ◽  
Impact Reduction

Construction accounts for a considerable number of environmental impacts, especially in countries with rapid urbanization. A predictive environmental assessment method enables a comparison of alternatives in construction operations to mitigate these environmental impacts. Process-based life cycle assessment (pLCA), which is the most widely applied environmental assessment method, requires lots of detailed process information to evaluate. However, a construction project usually operates in uncertain and dynamic project environments, and capturing such process information represents a critical challenge for pLCA. Discrete event simulation (DES) provides an opportunity to include uncertainty and capture the dynamic environments of construction operations. This study proposes a predictive assessment method that integrates DES and pLCA (DES-pLCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of on-site construction operations and supply chains. The DES feeds pLCA with process information that considers the uncertain and dynamic environments of construction, while pLCA guides the comprehensive procedure of environmental assessment. A DES-pLCA prototype was developed and implemented in a case study of an 18-storey building in Northeast China. The results showed that the biggest impact variations on the global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication (EP), photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP), abiotic depletion potential (ADP), and human toxicity potential (HTP) were 5.1%, 4.1%, 4.1%, 4.7%, 0.3%, and 5.9%, respectively, due to uncertain and dynamic factors. Based on the proposed method, an average impact reduction can be achieved for these six indictors of 2.5%, 21.7%, 8.2%, 4.8%, 32.5%, and 0.9%, respectively. The method also revealed that the material wastage rate of formwork installation was the most crucial managing factor that influences global warming performance. The method can support contractors in the development and management of environmentally friendly construction operations that consider the effects of uncertainty and dynamics.

Relationship Between Environmental Sustainability and Human Development Index: A Case of Selected South Asian Nations

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-133
Author(s):  
Megha Jain ◽  
Aishwarya Nagpal
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Human Development ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Human Development Index ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Human Capital Accumulation

All the economists today have established that externalities (free-rider issues) and public goods are the leading causes of market failure, holding the utmost level of relevance of environmental economics. Pollution types can be segregated physically based on the channels (water, air and land) or the sectors responsible for causing it (e.g., industry, electricity generation, transport, agricultural waste disposal, etc.). Thus, sustainability emerges as a key challenge of the twenty-first century for public think tanks and business communities in the form of carbon emissions and global warming. So, in order to understand the role of sustainability in the era of development, the overall broader purpose of the current study is to study the quantitative linkages between human development index (HDI) (a sustainability measure of standard of living, i.e., per capita GDP) and environmental performance index (EPI, measure of environmental health and ecosystem vitality) for the selected South Asian nations (SANs) and comparative analysis of India with the selected developing nations from 2002 to 2016. To test whether the degree of economic expansion and standard of living have a systematic relationship with the level of environmental deterioration (existence of Kuznet curve hypotheses) in a country which poses a future threat to the global warming potential (GWP), the study employs dynamic panel modelling on selected SANs, followed by descriptive graphical synthesis to visualize the association for India in particular. Several other macroeconomic and capital flow variables, such as energy consumption, direct foreign investment and so on, are considered in the extended empirical model development in order to supplement the holistic review of the situation. The findings of the panel analysis discover HDI to be positively associated with EPI, depicting higher human capital accumulation leading to lower environmental damage and better environmental performance. Additionally, the results confirm the deviation from environmental Kuznet curve (EKC) hypotheses to link economic growth positively with climatic worsening (due to recent reversals). The study finds its niche to separate it from various other studies as it includes human capital accumulation in order to find its effect in the long run on sustainability indicator. The overall results suggest crucial policy implications. The combined efforts of government at local and national levels could help in infusing green technology-based infrastructure. Additionally, environment trading system (ETS) could further be promoted in developing nations, particularly in many Western developed nations, in order to have a greener sustainable future.

Use of life cycle assessment to evaluate environmental impacts associated with the management of sludge and biogas

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (9) ◽  
pp. 2292-2300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Cubas do Amaral ◽  
Miguel Mansur Aisse ◽  
Gustavo Rafael Collere Possetti ◽  
Marcelo Real Prado
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Sewage Treatment ◽  
Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket ◽  
Anaerobic Sludge ◽  
Baseline Scenario ◽  
Low Efficiency ◽  
By Products

Abstract Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors used in sewage treatment generate two by-products that can be reused: sludge and biogas. At the present time in Brazil, most of this resulting sludge is disposed of in sanitary landfills, while biogas is commonly burned off in low-efficiency flares. The aim of the present study was to use life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts from four different treatment and final destination scenarios for the main by-products of wastewater treatment plants. The baseline scenario, in which the sludge was sanitized using prolonged alkaline stabilization and, subsequently, directed toward agricultural applications and the biogas destroyed in open burners, had the most impact in the categories of global warming, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and human non-carcinogenic toxicity. The scenario in which heat resulting from biogas combustion is used to dry the sludge showed significant improvements over the baseline scenario in all the evaluated impact categories. The recovery of heat from biogas combustion decreased significantly the environmental impact associated with global warming. The combustion of dried sludge is another alternative to improve the sludge management. Despite the reduction of sludge volume to ash, there are environmental impacts inherent to ozone formation and terrestrial acidification.

Cost and environmental impacts reduction through building compactness

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Parisi Kern ◽  
Renata Postay ◽  
Eduardo Reuter Schneck ◽  
Mauricio Mancio ◽  
Marco Aurélio Stumpf González ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Constructive Method ◽  
Emission Data ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Research Stage ◽  
Compactness Index

PurposeThe central motivation for this study was to examine alternatives against the apartment area reduction as a safe way to reduce construction costs, adopted by many construction companies. From the building economic compactness index concept, it was studied the cost and environmental impacts (material consumption, embodied energy – EE and CO2 emission).Design/methodology/approachThe research strategy takes advantage of a case study aiming to investigate the relation between design characteristics related to area (m²) and building economic compactness index (%) with cost (Research Stage 1) and with environmental impacts: (Research Stage 2). The study involved real data from social housing projects, chosen in terms in terms of very similar features like size, area and constructive method (constants), however, with dissimilar compactness (variable).FindingsThe lack of direct relation between area and cost signs the importance of including the cost of vertical plans considered in the economic compactness building. The higher the economic compactness index, the lower the cost, the lower the amount of material, EE and CO2 emission parameters. However, due to the wide range of EE and CO2 values available, the reduction in the amount of materials achieved by increasing building economic compactness index may not be reflected in EE and CO2 gains.Research limitations/implicationsAs the limitation of this study, it must be taken into account a limited number of case buildings and the fact that the analysis is dependent on the reliability and accuracy of the data provided by constructors and the available information of EE and CO2 emission. As well discussed in the literature, the consistent database is a great challenge for the construction sector.Originality/valueThere might be alternatives to higher areas with relatively low-cost increments since results from buildings with the same area present different cost estimative and suggest a strong relationship with the economic compactness index. The large variation of EE and CO2 emission data indicates that reductions obtained by compactness increase may be impaired if the construction materials are produced with high levels of EE and CO2 emission. Thus, there must be an integrated effort on the part of designers (design and material specification) and manufacturers (material production), since isolated solutions may not be enough.

scholarly journals Process simulation and gate-to-gate life cycle assessment of hydrometallurgical refractory gold concentrate processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heini Elomaa ◽  
Pia Sinisalo ◽  
Lotta Rintala ◽  
Jari Aromaa ◽  
Mari Lundström
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Process Simulation ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Gold Recovery ◽  
Pressure Oxidation ◽  
Refractory Gold

Abstract Purpose Currently, almost all cyanide-free gold leaching processes are still in the development stage. Proactively investigating their environmental impacts prior to commercialization is of utmost importance. In this study, a detailed refractory gold concentrate process simulation with mass and energy balance was built for state-of-the-art technology with (i) pressure oxidation followed by cyanidation and, compared to alternative cyanide-free technology, with (ii) pressure oxidation followed by halogen leaching. Subsequently, the simulated mass balance was used as life cycle inventory data in order to evaluate the environmental impacts of the predominant cyanidation process and a cyanide-free alternative. Methods The environmental indicators for each scenario are based on the mass balance produced with HSC Sim steady-state simulation. The simulated mass balances were evaluated to identify the challenges in used technologies. The HSC Sim software is compatible with the GaBi LCA software, where LCI data from HSC-Sim is directly exported to. The simulation produces a consistent life cycle inventory (LCI). In GaBi LCA software, the environmental indicators of global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), terrestrial eutrophication potential (EP), and water depletion (Water) are estimated. Results and discussion The life cycle assessment revealed that the GWP for cyanidation was 10.1 t CO2-e/kg Au, whereas the halogen process indicated a slightly higher GWP of 12.6 t CO2-e/kg Au. The difference is partially explained by the fact that the footprint is calculated against produced units of Au; total recovery by the halogen leaching route for gold was only 87.3%, whereas the cyanidation route could extract as much as 98.5% of gold. The addition of a second gold recovery unit to extract gold also from the washing water in the halogen process increased gold recovery up to 98.5%, decreasing the GWP of the halogen process to 11.5 t CO2-e/kg Au. However, both evaluated halogen processing scenarios indicated a slightly higher global warming potential when compared to the dominating cyanidation technology. Conclusions The estimated environmental impacts predict that the development-stage cyanide-free process still has some challenges compared to cyanidation; as in the investigated scenarios, the environmental impacts were generally higher for halogen leaching. Further process improvements, for example in the form of decreased moisture in the feed for halide leaching, and the adaptation of in situ gold recovery practices in chloride leaching may give the cyanide-free processing options a competitive edge.

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