Examination of Bearing Walls Regarding Their Environmental Performance

Adriana Estokova, Marcela Ondova, Martina Wolfova, Alena Paulikova and Stanislav Toth
Additional contact information
Adriana Estokova: Institute of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Kosice, Vysokoskolska 4, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia
Marcela Ondova: Institute of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Kosice, Vysokoskolska 4, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia
Martina Wolfova: Institute of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Kosice, Vysokoskolska 4, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia
Alena Paulikova: Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Jana Bottu 25, 917 24 Trnava, Slovakia
Stanislav Toth: Institute of Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Kosice, Vysokoskolska 4, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-27

Abstract: A comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts of buildings is not possible without knowledge of the technical and environmental properties of the materials that are used for their construction. This paper evaluates the environmental impacts of 156 material variations of conventional compositions of external bearing walls, which represent a significant part of a building’s envelope. Environmental (embodied energy, global warming potential, effects to human health, damage to ecosystems, and resources availability) and technical (surface temperature, number of layers, thickness, and weight) parameters are investigated for structures with similar heat transfer coefficients (U = 0.21–0.22 W/(m 2 ·K)). Based on a multi-criteria analysis, an optimal material composition, consisting of aerated concrete with graphite polystyrene, was identified. By analyzing the costs of the best material compositions, it is observed that constructions with environmental benefits do not result in an increase in the cost of the construction. On the contrary, at present, they represent an approximately 10% cheaper solution.

Keywords: primary energy; building material; global warming potential; greenhouse emissions; environmental assessment; Life Cycle Assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/2/260/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/2/260/ (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:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:2:p:260-:d:197954

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

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