Life-Cycle Design for Engineered Timber Products

Martin P. Ansell, Richard J. Murphy and Bill Hillier

Chapter 9 in Towards an Environment Research Agenda, 2004, pp 211-231 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Summary Life-cycle and design (LCD) is presented as a tool for evaluating the design aspects of life-cycle assessment (LCA) and applied to engineered timber products. The LCD approach is valuable for assessing the environmental impact of competing designs or design modifications. We examine two case-study examples of LCD applied to engineered timber products, namely the ash frame of a sports car and oriented strand board (OSB), a commercial panel product. Design improvements proposed for the timber frame are assessed in terms of environmental impact in the first case-study. The environmental implications of improved strand alignment and change of resin binder system for the OSB are evaluated in the second case-study. The LCD programme has highlighted the issue of energy/fuel con-sumption in the manufacture and use of the sports car frame. In the OSB study, weight reduction in panels derived from improved strand alignment, leading to reduced transport emissions, was not sufficient to overcome the climate change benefit associated with the ability of timber to sequester carbon. An ‘incremental LCA’ approach has been proposed and applied to the LCD of engineered timber products, which follows the design process from concept to manufactured product.

Keywords: Oriented Strand Board; Phenol Formaldehyde; Medium Density Fibreboard; Timber Frame; Panel Product (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-55442-9_9

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230554429_9

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