A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Study of Wood and Steel Materials on a Virtual Office Building at the Project End-of-Life Stage

9 pages•Published: May 15, 2022

Abstract

The disposal of construction and demolition waste has an impact on the environment. This study focuses on the end-of-life stage to assess a virtual office building, by applying a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) and used Athena software. The study determined LCA methods, and software tools based on a thorough literature review and then assessed the environmental impact of steel versus wood materials on a virtual office building model that was created from an actual construction project. The study quantifies the environmental impact of steel and wood materials into nine categories, including Global Warming Potential, Acidification Potential, etc., by using life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) analyses. The results of this study show that the wood structure building has greater impact on environment than the steel structure building at the end-of-life stage in four categories of (1) Acidification Potential, (2) Eutrophication Potential, (3) Ozone Depletion Potential, and (4) Smog Potential, but has less impact on other five categories with actually a positive environmental impact in the Global Warming potential. The results of this study can provide valuable information about the environmental impact of different materials to reduce the environmental impact at the end-of- life stage.

Keyphrases: end of life stage, environmental impact, global warming, life cycle assessment

In: Tom Leathem, Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud (editors). ASC2022. 58th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference, vol 3, pages 749-757.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/2dxS
	https://doi.org/10.29007/jx74

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{ASC2022:Comparative_Life_Cycle_Assessment,
  author    = {Bin Bi and Zhili Gao and Abdulaziz Banawi},
  title     = {A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Study of Wood and Steel Materials on a Virtual Office Building at the Project End-of-Life Stage},
  booktitle = {ASC2022. 58th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference},
  editor    = {Tom Leathem and Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Built Environment},
  volume    = {3},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2632-881X},
  url       = {/publications/paper/2dxS},
  doi       = {10.29007/jx74},
  pages     = {749-757},
  year      = {2022}}

Download PDF Open PDF in browser