Journal Article•
Assessment of building energy consumption and environmental impact based on life cycle theory
TL;DR: In this paper, the energy consumption and environmental impact of a teaching building in Jiangsu province were conducted with life cycle assessment from its raw material production to the completion, and the assessment results help to optimize the scheme of design, production or transportation.
Abstract: Life cycle assessment(LCA)is used to analyze the impacts of the building on energy consumption and environment of the society. The analysis results assist the participants to understand impacts of each stage of the construction projects on energy and environment. The energy consumption and environmental impact of a teaching building in Jiangsu province were conducted with life cycle assessment from its raw material production to the completion. The assessment results help to optimize the scheme of design,production or transportation. The research direction was also proposed to extend the life cycle evaluation methods from the view of resource and energy saving and environment protection.
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TL;DR: Zhang et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated a typical urban wetland park, the Green Lake Urban Wetland Park (GLUWP) of Beijing, in terms of its environmental and capital inputs, ecosystem services and organic matter yields, environmental support, and sustainability.
Abstract: In this paper, emergy accounting (EA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) methods are employed to investigate a typical urban wetland park, the Green Lake Urban Wetland Park (GLUWP) of Beijing, in terms of its environmental and capital inputs, ecosystem services and organic matter yields, environmental support, and sustainability. The LCA method is also used to obtain a quantitative estimation of the environmental impact of discharges during the entire life cycle of the GLUWP. Various emergy-based indices, such as emergy yield ratio (EYR), environmental load ratio (ELR), emergy sustainability index (ESI), net economic benefit (Np), and environmental impacts of process-based LCA, including global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication (EU), nonrenewable resource depletion (RU), energy consumption (EN), acidification potential (AP), photochemical oxidant creation potential (POCP), particulate matter (PM) and wastes (W), are calculated. The results show that the GLUWP has higher proportions of renewable resource input, less pressure on the environment, more environmental support and better ecological and economic benefits, which can be considered as an environment-friendly and long-term sustainable ecological practice, compared with another constructed wetland in Beijing. Meanwhile, the dominant environmental impact is induced by POCP with the construction phase contributing the most on the entire life cycle. It is expected that increasing green area, extensively using environment-friendly materials, optimizing construction techniques and reducing power consumption can promote the sustainability of the GLUWP.
79 citations
TL;DR: This study developed a quantitative method using parametric design technology and machine learning algorithms for assessing buildings’ environmental performance in early decision stages, considering uncertainty associated with detailed design decisions.
Abstract: Decisions made at early design stage have major impacts on buildings’ life-cycle environmental performance. However, when only a few parameters are determined in early design stages, the detailed design decisions may still vary significantly. This may cause same early design to have quite different environmental impacts. Moreover, default settings for unknown detailed design parameters clearly cannot cover all possible variations in impact, and Monte Carlo analysis is sometimes not applicable as parameters’ probability distributions are usually unknown. Thus, uncertainties about detailed design make it difficult for existing environmental assessment methods to support early design decisions. Thus, this study developed a quantitative method using parametric design technology and machine learning algorithms for assessing buildings’ environmental performance in early decision stages, considering uncertainty associated with detailed design decisions. The parametric design technology creates design scenarios dataset, then associated environmental performances are assessed using environmental assessment databases and building performance simulations. Based on the generated samples, a machine learning algorithm integrating fuzzy C-means clustering and extreme learning machine extracts the case-specific knowledge regarding designed buildings’ early design associated with environmental uncertainty. Proposed method is an alternative but more generally applicable method to previous approaches to assess building's environmental uncertainty in early design stages.
36 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper proposed a predictive assessment method that integrates discrete event simulation (DES) and process-based life cycle assessment (pLCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of on-site construction operations and supply chains.
Abstract: 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.
15 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper studied the feasibility and superiority of foam lightweight concrete (FLC) for existing buried high-pressure gas pipeline section under soft soil roadbed, and the three major aspects of analysis, namely the safety benefits, economic benefits and ecological benefits based on the LCA carbon emission calculation, showed that the FLC soft-soil roadbed treatment method can reduce the cost by 12% compared with the pile composite foundation treatment method, which is about 1.07 million RMB, and carbon emission is reduced by about one third.
Abstract: In order to study the feasibility and superiority of foam lightweight concrete (FLC) for existing buried high-pressure gas pipeline section under soft soil roadbed, this paper takes the buried existing high-pressure gas pipeline section under the second phase of the Foqingcong Expressway project as the engineering background, and designs two soft soil roadbed treatment schemes, the pile composite foundation method, and the foam lightweight concrete (FLC). Through bearing capacity and settlement calculations, it was confirmed that FLC is feasible for soft soil roadbeds in the existing buried high-pressure gas pipe section, and the three major aspects of analysis, namely the safety benefits, economic benefits and ecological benefits based on the LCA carbon emission calculation, showed that the FLC soft soil roadbed treatment method can reduce the cost by 12% compared with the pile composite foundation treatment method, which is about 1.07 million RMB, and the carbon emission is reduced by about one third. This is a clear benefit advantage. Finally, the feasibility of FLC for buried high-pressure gas pipe sections under both soft soil roadbeds was further verified by field measurements of settlement and earth pressure, which has broad application prospects.
2 citations