Environmental Impact of Demolishing a Steel Structure Design for Disassembly

Elżbieta Broniewicz () and Karolina Dec
Additional contact information
Elżbieta Broniewicz: Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska 45A, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland
Karolina Dec: Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska 45A, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: The encouraging Design for Disassembly appears in the literature more and more often. Such a design appears to offer clear environmental advantages. However, there are still not enough research results to support the existence of these benefits. The authors using the Life Cycle Assessment method, which assesses the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions during the demolition and operation of steel structure. Steel is completely recyclable and, in terms of tonnage, is the most recycled material worldwide. We assessed three scenarios: (1) complete re-remelting (recycling) of the structure; (2) partial reuse of construction elements + remelting (recovery + recycling); and (3) complete reuse of the structure (recovery). GaBi software was used for the analysis. It was found that the environmental impact varied significantly among the examined scenarios. The first scenario poses the greatest environmental burden. However, compared to Scenario no. 1, Scenario 3’s environmental impact is more than 70% lower.

Keywords: DfD; life cycle assessment; energy savings; global warming potential (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/7358/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/7358/ (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:15:y:2022:i:19:p:7358-:d:935227

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 ().