Evaluación económica y ambiental del uso y mantenimiento de edificios

Debido a un diseño poco reflexivo de los edificios en cuanto a los costes mantenimiento, hoy en día hay edificios extremadamente costosos en este aspecto, tanto económica como ambientalmente hablando. Con el fin de reducir estos excesos, es necesario desarrollar una base de costes con la que se puedan estimar los recursos requeridos para limpiar y mantener los edificios. En esta tesis se presenta una metodología para estimar esos costes y el impacto ambiental, en términos de Huella Ecológica (HE), asociados al consumo de suministros, tareas de limpieza, y mantenimiento y renovación de los elementos constructivos durante la vida útil de los edificios. Dadas las numerosas peculiaridades identificadas para este tipo de actividades comparado con la construcción de edificios, es necesario definir una nueva metodología de cálculo, con sus propias hipótesis y formulación. Esta metodología se aplica después al caso de estudio de una residencia de estudiantes con capacidad para 139 residentes. Los resultados distribuyen la HE anual del edificio (74,28 hag/año) en un 7,24 % para las labores de limpieza, un 16,20 % para el mantenimiento, y el restante 76,56 % para el consumo de suministros, el cual se traduce casi íntegramente en huella de carbono. Los costes económicos, sin embargo, están dominados por la limpieza, con un 64 %. El consumo de suministros y el mantenimiento suponen un 20 % y un 16 % respectivamente. Sin tener en cuenta el consumo de suministros, los resultados alcanzan un reparto uniforme entre las seis categorías de HE debido a la gran necesidad de mano de obra para estas actividades. El desarrollo de esta metodología es esencial para la cuantificación detallada del coste económico y el impacto ambiental de la fase de uso y mantenimiento de los edificios. Se utilizan tasas de actualización de moneda y HE para expresar los resultados en términos del año actual.Due to poor design of buildings in terms of maintenance, there are a number of buildings today that remain extremely expensive to maintain, both economically and environmentally. In order to mitigate these overheads, the development of a cost database is needed with which the resources required to clean and maintain buildings can be estimated. This thesis presents a methodology to estimate these costs and the environmental impact, in terms of Ecological Footprint (EF), associated to the utility consumption, cleaning tasks and maintenance and renovation of constructive elements during the service life of buildings. Given the numerous peculiarities identified for this type of activity compared to the construction of buildings, it is necessary to define a new methodology of calculation, with its own assumptions and formulae. This methodology is the applied to the case of a college dormitory that houses up to 139 residents. The results show that cleaning tasks account for 7.24 % of the annual EF of the building (74.28 gha/yr), while maintenance accounts for 16.20 % and the remaining 76.56 % for utility consumption, which almost totally translates into carbon footprint. On the other hand, the economic costs are dominated by cleaning (64 %). Utility consumption and maintenance account for 20 % and 16 % respectively. Without taking into account the utility consumption, the results are equally divided among the six categories of productive land due to the great requirements of manpower for these activities. The development of this methodology is essential for the detailed quantification of the costs and environmental impact of the use and maintenance phase of buildings. Discount rates are used to express costs and environmental impact in terms of the current year.Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado U

Natural Stabilized Earth Panels versus Conventional Façade Systems. Economic and Environmental Impact Assessment

More effective construction technologies are needed nowadays in order to reduce construction energy consumption during the life-cycle of buildings. Besides which, it is necessary to consider the economic feasibility and associated costs within the framework of these alternative technologies so as to favouring their practical implementation in the construction sector. In this sense, this paper presents an economic and environmental comparison of a new non-bearing façade construction solution based on the extruded unfired stabilized clay panels as opposed to three traditional solutions with similar physical, thermal, and aesthetic characteristics in terms of the exterior cladding. The proposed panels are a sandwich type configuration with an intermediate insulating material and two exterior pieces manufactured by extrusion with raw earth stabilized with alginate and animal wool fibers. In this paper, details of the constructive technology of the system are provided. From the results obtained, it is possible to conclude that the solution is a valid alternative from the environmental point of view, considerably reducing the GlobalWarming Potential and the Cumulative Energy Demand. And although the environmental improvement of the system can be considered the primary objective of this investigation, on the other hand, once executed, it will also be a competitive constructive technology from the perspective of the system’s final costs

A comprehensive performance evaluation of different mobile manipulators used as displaceable 3D printers of building elements for the construction industry

The construction industry is currently technologically challenged to incorporate new developments for enhancing the process, such as the use of 3D printing for complex building structures,which is the aim of this brief. To do so, we show a systematic study regarding the usability and performance of mobile manipulators as displaceable 3D printing machinery in construction sites,with emphasis on the three main different existing mobile platforms: the car-like, the unicycleand the omnidirectional (mecanum wheeled), with an UR5 manipulator on them. To evaluate its performance, we propose the printing of the following building elements: helical, square, circular and mesh, with different sizes. As metrics, we consider the total control effort observed in the robots and the total tracking error associated with the energy consumed in the activity to get a more sustainable process. In addition, to further test our work, we constrained the robot workspace thus resemblingreal life construction sites. In general, the statistical results show that the omnidirectional platform presents the best results –lowest tracking error and lowest control effort– for circular, helicoidal and mesh building elements; and car-like platform shows the best results for square-like building element. Then,an innovative performance analysis is achieved for the printing of building elements, with a contribution to the reduction of energy consumptio

Indicador económico y ambiental en edificios de uso administrativo durante su vida útil.

It has been defined a theoretical indicator of the economic and environmental cost which a public building based on use and surface might incur. It has been followed the methodology for developing the Ecological Footprint, the UNE-EN 15221 and the General Accounting Plan of the Administration of the Government of Andalusia and its Administrative Agencies and Special Regime. Firstly, it has defined the per capita spending on building maintenance so that we will have a reference of the economic figure within the life of the building. Subsequently, it has been taken an administrative building adjusting the main items (consumption energy, maintenance and cleaning), it was associated with various significant sections of the UNE-EN 15221 Facility Management and Support Services and the General Public Accounting Plan administrative headquarters. Similarly, the coding of the items studied according to the Andalusian Construction Costs Database (ACCD). Finally, representativeness and consistency of the environmental economic indicator of the expenditure budget in our case study and real expenses incurred during the year 2015 are concluded.Se ha definido un indicador teórico del coste económico y ambiental que debe tener un edificio público en función de su uso y superficie. Se ha seguido la metodología para el cálculo de Huella Ecológica, la norma UNE-EN 15221 y el Plan General de Contabilidad de la Administración de la Junta de Andalucía y de sus Agencias Administrativas y de Régimen Especial. Definiendo el gasto por habitante en mantenimiento de edificios se ha obtenido una referencia de la magnitud económica dentro de la vida útil del edificio. Posteriormente, se ha tomado un edificio administrativo de referencia adecuando las principales partidas (consumos energía, mantenimiento y limpieza), a los diferentes apartados de la UNE-EN 15221 sobre Gestión de Inmuebles y Servicios de Soporte y al Plan General de Contabilidad Pública de la sede administrativa. De esta forma, se han conseguido aislar la repercusión económica y medioambiental de las partidas objeto de estudio sobre el total del presupuesto. De igual forma, se plantea la codificación de las partidas estudiadas según la clasificación sistemática de la Base de Costes de la Construcción de Andalucía. Por último, se concluye calculando la consistencia de nuestro indicador sobre el total del presupuesto de gastos del edificio estudiado y los gastos reales producidos durante el ejercicio 2015

Carbon Footprint Estimation Tool for Residential Buildings for Non-Specialized Users: OERCO2 Project

Existing tools for environmental certification of buildings are failing in their ability to reach the general public and to create social awareness, since they require not only specialized knowledge regarding construction and energy sources, but also environmental knowledge. In this paper, an open-source online tool for the estimation of the carbon footprint of residential buildings by non-specialized users is presented as a product from the OERCO2 Erasmus + project. The internal calculations, data management and operation of this tool are extensively explained. The ten most common building typologies built in the last decade in Spain are analysed by using the OERCO2 tool, and the order of magnitude of the results is analysed by comparing them to the ranges determined by other authors. The OERCO2 tool proves itself to be reliable, with its results falling within the defined logical value ranges. Moreover, the major simplification of the interface allows non-specialized users to evaluate the sustainability of buildings. Further research is oriented towards its inclusion in other environmental certification tools and in Building Information Modeling (BIM) environments

Environmental benchmarking of building typologies through BIM-based combinatorial case studies

Integrated life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools have emerged as decision-making support for BIM practitioners during the design stage of sustainable projects. However, differences between methodologies applied for determining the environmental impact of buildings produce significant variations in the results obtained, making them difficult to be compared. In this study, a methodology is defined for generating environmental benchmarks for building typologies through a combination of BIM-based LCA tools and machine learning techniques. When applied to an 11-story residential building typology with 92 dwellings by varying the constructive solutions of façades, partitions, roof and thermal insulation materials, results fall within a range from 360 to 430 kgCO2eq/m2. The Random Forest (RF) algorithm is successfully applied for identifying the most decisive variables in the analysis (partitions and façades), and shows signs of being useful for predicting the environmental impact of future constructions and to be applied to the analysis of greater scale urban zones

BIM-LCA Integration for the environmental impact assessment of the urbanization process

The construction sector is one of the most polluting industries, generating between 30% and 40% of the worldwide environmental burden in terms of raw materials, direct and indirect energy consumption, waste, and CO2 emissions. Recent advances in computer science and data management have facilitated the evaluation of present and future impacts, thus improving the sustainability of architectural designs. Powerful software tools, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM),allow environmental indicators to be incorporated into the construction elements that make up the project to evaluate it during the design stage. In this work, the state of the art of ecological indicator application through BIM platforms is studied. Barriers and uncertainties are also identified.Subsequently, a model is proposed to evaluate the environmental impact of an urbanization processor a project through several ecological indicators (carbon footprint, water footprint, and embodiedenergy). To perform this analysis, the most important aspect is to determine the quantities of each construction element and their clear decomposition into subelements, since both aspects add certainty to the analysis. For this purpose, construction cost databases are a good instrument for introducing environmental a wareness. The reliability of LCA data, which can be obtained from generic databasesor ecolabels such as environmental product declarations, becomes crucia

Life Cycle Assessment of Industrial Building Construction and Recovery Potential: Case Studies in Seville

In Spain, most businesses are medium to small size enterprises, representing 90% of the total, but there is a lack of studies of the types of building this sector uses. The main objective of this paper is to present a method for the evaluation of small industrial construction projects to facilitate the introduction of eco-efficient solutions. For this, it is necessary to identify the most representative buildings and the aspects of these which have the most environmental impact. A methodology in place for the evaluation of dwelling construction is adapted, for the first time, to evaluate industrial buildings. The construction solutions characterized are those traditionally used in the sector, as identified through 87 surveys. A standardized classification of work units is proposed to enable the use of environmental product information, such as eco-labels and/or EPD, and LCA databases. The carbon footprint (CF) and water footprint (WF) are the indicators selected because of their straightforward message. Finally, a comparative analysis is performed showing the high recycling potential of concrete and cement which, along with metals and aggregates, control the impact in terms of CF. With respect to the WF indicator, plastic substitute aggregates are among the materials with the greatest impac

Recent developments and challenges of 3D-printed construction: a review of research fronts

In the last few years, scattered experiences of the application of additive manufacturing in the construction of buildings using 3D printing with robots or automated equipment have emerged around the world. These use a variety of procedures and suggest relevant advantages for the construction industry. In order to identify the different processes and features in development in this field and to guide future research and applications, this article presents a review of the literature on the main aspects involved in the use of 3D printing in the construction sector. The review includes state-of-the-art material mixtures, printing technologies, and potential uses, as well as a novel analysis of building strategies, management systems, and benefits stated about this new approach for construction. It reveals progressive experimentation regarding diverse features, with challenges related to the consolidation of procedures and this technology’s readiness to participate in the building market