Life-Cycle Assessment: A Comparison between Two Optimal Post-Tensioned Concrete Box-Girder Road Bridges

Vicent Penadés-Plà, José V. Martí, Tatiana García-Segura and Víctor Yepes
Additional contact information
Vicent Penadés-Plà: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
José V. Martí: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Tatiana García-Segura: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Víctor Yepes: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: The goal of sustainability involves a consensus among economic, environmental and social factors. Due to climate change, environmental concerns have increased in society. The construction sector is among the most active high environmental impact sectors. This paper proposes new features to consider a more detailed life-cycle assessment (LCA) of reinforced or pre-stressed concrete structures. Besides, this study carries out a comparison between two optimal post-tensioned concrete box-girder road bridges with different maintenance scenarios. ReCiPe method is used to carry out the life-cycle assessment. The midpoint approach shows a complete environmental profile with 18 impact categories. In practice, all the impact categories make their highest contribution in the manufacturing and use and maintenance stages. Afterwards, these two stages are analyzed to identify the process which makes the greatest contribution. In addition, the contribution of CO 2 fixation is taken into account, reducing the environmental impact in the use and maintenance and end of life stages. The endpoint approach shows more interpretable results, enabling an easier comparison between different stages and solutions. The results show the importance of considering the whole life-cycle, since a better design reduces the global environmental impact despite a higher environmental impact in the manufacturing stage.

Keywords: sustainability; environmental impact; life-cycle assessment; construction LCA; bridge LCA; ReCiPe; sustainable construction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1864/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1864/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1864-:d:115252

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().