Environmental LCA database for conventional portuguese building technologies

Nowadays there is an increasing concern with the high emissions of polluting gases, the high use of natural resources and energy related to construction sector. There are several environmental impacts in this sector that can be moderated. This paper presents a study that allows the designers to quickly and easily apply the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) method to projects and therefore to understand which solutions are the best in what regards to sustainable construction. To fulfill the abovementioned goals this work studies the environmental per-formance of building technologies covered by the ITE50 manual coefficients of heat transfer of the building envelope elements . This manual covers the majority of building technologies used in Portugal

Utilização do método LCA no projeto de edifícios sustentáveis

As emissões excessivas de poluentes e a elevada utilização de recursos naturais e de energia, associados ao sector da construção, são cada vez mais preocupantes. Por conseguinte, os impactes ambientais associados a este sector são elevados, mas apresentam elevado potencial em serem minorados. É o Projetista que, na fase de execução do projeto, determina quais os materiais a aplicar numa determinada obra. Dada a necessidade atual em se minimizar os impactes ambientais, o projetista terá de demonstrar, sob um ponto de vista da construção sustentável, alguma sensibilidade na escolha dos materiais a colocar em obra. Atualmente existem no mercado ferramentas que permitem comparar os materiais e as tecnologias construtivas existentes, classificando-as como soluções “melhores” ou “piores” para cada projeto. No entanto, a complexidade e morosidade do processo restringe o seu uso a especialistas. Este estudo pretende simplificar o processo de avaliação do ciclo de vida de uma construção, permitindo, aos projetistas a aplicação, mais rápida e simples, da metodologia LCA normalizada, de forma a suportar as decisões na hora de escolher a “melhor” solução a adotar numa construção. Para o efeito foi estudado o impacte ambiental de todas as soluções construtivas que constam no manual ITE 50 "Coeficientes de transmissão térmica de elementos da envolvente dos edifícios". Este manual apresenta os processos construtivos mais correntes em Portugal. Desta forma os projetista passarão a poder cruzar o desempenho térmico das soluções construtivas com os seus potenciais impactes ambientais, permitindo optar por soluções equivalentes do ponto de vista funcional, mas que apresentam melhor desempenho ambiental

Life-cycle assessment of lightweight textile membrane partition walls

This paper analyze the environmental, functional and economical performances of some conceptual lightweights textiles membranes partitions walls and to compare one of them with two technologies present in Portuguese market: i) the heavyweight conventional hollow brick partition wall; and ii) the lightweight reference plasterboard partition wall. Advantages of use textile/ fibrous/ membrane based materials in partition walls are focused and they may contribute for the development of new partition wall technologies. The comparative evaluation of these solutions is based on a standard Life-cycle Assessment method

Sustainability assessment of an innovative lightweight building technology for partition walls : comparison with conventional technologies

The growing necessity to save material and energy resources, together with an increasing concern over the environmental issues and uncertainties on the evolution of the economy, have impelled minimalist approaches to Architecture and Engineering. This created a new necessity for reducing, to the minimum necessary expression, the used building materials and elements. When analysing the overall material inputs of a building, it is possible to conclude that the interior partition walls have the higher contribution to the material inputs, when compared to other non-load bearing construction elements. Other aspect to highlight is that a great portion of building designs are not flexible in use and therefore buildings are not suitably adjustable to the permanent updating of life-styles and variations on the composition of the households. Although there are some lightweight building technologies, in most cases the construction practice all over Europe makes use of heavyweight and static partition walls. This paper will focus the advantages of lightweight partition walls and may contribute for the development of new partition wall technologies. It presents a sustainability assessment of a new lightweight sandwich membrane building technology for indoor partitions developed within a research project. The used methodology comprises the environmental, functional and economic life-cycle analysis. In order to identify the advantages of the building technology under development, each different design approach for the conceptual technology will be compared with two reference technologies: i) the heavyweight conventional partition wall (hollow brick wall); and ii) the lightweight reference gypsum panels wall (plasterboard wall).Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Comparative assessment of FRP´S and steel bars applied on the reinforcement of concrete structures

Nowadays the sustainability of construction and the need for more sustainable construction solutions is one big concern in the construction field. This way, many times the FRP reinforcing materials are seen and sold as more sustainable and ecological options, when compared with steel or other metal based materials. This fact is essentially due to their non carbon dioxide corrosion characteristics that ensure longer service life and light-weight combined with high strength (Waldron, 2004). But the application of FRP bars for concrete reinforcement is a very specific application that deals with very different requirements and conditions. Due to that, the sustainability has to be assessed through the whole range of structural applications by specific tools, able to evaluate the real sustainability such as the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools (Franzoni, 2011). To address this issue, a comparative study has been performed , among different concrete reinforcing materials such as steel, Glass fiber-reinforced Polymer (GFRP), Aramid fiberreinforced polymer (AFRP) and Carbon Fiber-reinforced Polymer(CFRP) and for two different structural applications: beam and slab. Therefore, the objective of this work is to compare the LCA of concrete structural elements, under the same ultimate and service load conditions, reinforced by steel and different FRPs