Comparison of Carbon Dioxide Emissions of the Ordinary Reinforced Concrete Slab and the Voided Slab System During the Construction Phase: A Case Study of a Residential Building in South Korea

Inkwan Paik and Seunguk Na
Additional contact information
Inkwan Paik: Super-Tall Building Global R & BD Centre, The 2nd Engineering Hall, 152 Jukjeon-ro, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 31116, Korea
Seunguk Na: .Department of Architectural Engineering, College of Architecture, 152 Jukjeon-ro, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 31116, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 13, 1-16

Abstract: The construction industry not only consumes a lot of energy but also emits large volumes of carbon dioxide. Most countries have established target reduction values of the carbon dioxide emissions to alleviate environmental burdens and promote sustainable development. The reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the construction industry has been taking place in various ways as buildings produce large quantities of the carbon dioxide over their construction life cycle. The aim of this study is to assess and compare the carbon dioxide emissions of an ordinary reinforced concrete slab and the voided slab system applied to a case study involving a commercial-residential complex building in South Korea. Process-based life-cycle assessment (LCA) is adopted to compute the carbon dioxide emissions during the construction phase, which includes all processes from material production to the end of construction. The results indicate that the total CO 2 emissions are 257,230 and 218,800 kg CO 2 for the ordinary reinforced concrete slab and the voided slab system, respectively. The highest contributor to CO 2 reduction is the embodied carbon dioxide emissions of the building materials, which accounts for 34,966 kg CO 2 . The second highest contributor is the transportation of the building materials, accounting for 3417 kg CO 2 .

Keywords: reinforced concrete slab; void slab; residential building; life cycle assessment; process-based; carbon dioxide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/13/3571/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/13/3571/ (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:11:y:2019:i:13:p:3571-:d:243894

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 ().