Comparison of environmental impacts of steel and concrete as building materials using the Life Cycle Assessment method

In the United States, the construction industry accounts for almost 75% of total raw material used. This is an obvious drain on natural resources and has a major impact on the surrounding environment. Construction materials are also responsible for a relatively large portion of the global CO2 emissions. The commercial construction industry is dominated by the use of steel and in-situ concrete as building materials. It is intuitive then, to state that these two materials and their respective production flows have a significant impact on the environment, simply because of the amount of material being produced and consumed in the building industry today. In addition, due to drastic increases in energy prices and potential shortages in the future, the amount of energy consumed in the production of construction materials (embodied energy) and the amount of energy used over a projected life span (operational energy) are becoming increasingly more important to builders, designers, and owners of buildings. The growing trend in the United States, and elsewhere in the world, is towards eco-friendly design. In the last several years, the concrete and steel industries have spent significant resources to promote their material as the optimum solution for sustainable building design.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Johnson, Timothy Werner

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jerome J. Connor.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34608

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34608