Life Cycle Assessment of Off-Site Construction Using Ultra-High-Performance Concrete

Chenyuan Ji, Yitong Wu, Zengfeng Zhao, Chen Chen and Lei Yao
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Chenyuan Ji: Department of Structural Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Yitong Wu: Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Zengfeng Zhao: Department of Structural Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Chen Chen: Department of Structural Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Lei Yao: Department of Structural Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: This study aims to evaluate the environmental impacts of off-site construction using ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) and different curing methods. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is implemented to evaluate the environmental impacts of the proposed UHPC and the traditional concrete (TC) under different curing conditions from cradle to gate. Unlike the previous studies that considered the function unit of concrete as 1 m 3 , this study investigates the concrete elements with the same load capacity. Comparison is made between off-site water bath heating curing (HC) ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC), on-site UHPC, off-site HC traditional concrete (TC), on-site TC, and off-site CO 2 curing TC. The LCA results show that UHPC is generally better than TC in terms of environmental impacts. Using off-site CO 2 curing further improves its environmental benefits. The off-site HC UHPC shows higher productivity and higher environmental impacts compared to the on-site construction method. However, when the design load capacity of the concrete increases, the difference between off-site construction using 50 °C HC UHPC and on-site curing (20 °C HC UHPC) decreases.

Keywords: concrete; off-site construction; UHPC; heat curing; CO 2 curing; life cycle assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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