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Professor, D. Eng.
Department of Civil Engg
De La Salle University,
Manila, Philippines
andyoreta@yahoo.com
andres.oreta@dlsu.edu.ph
Civil Engineer
BSCE, De La Salle University,
Manila, Philippines
janelleong1019@gmail.com
Civil Engineer
BSCE, De La Salle University,
Manila, Philippines
narcilla@yahoo.com
Summary
This paper assessed the environmental impact for manufacturing and disposal of the
structural systems of housing units in the Philippines using a Life Cycle Inventory. Based on
the assessment, a Structural Sustainability Index (SSI) was derived considering the various
environmental impact indicators. The SSI is a score derived from the weighted average of
five environmental impact categories Global warming potential, Ocean acidification,
Human toxicity, Abiotic material depletion and Energy use. A survey of experts on the
environment was conducted to derive the weights used for the SSI computation. The concept
was applied to low-cost housing units in the Philippines, specifically on four models with 60
sq.m. floor area. The SSI for the various housing units was compared and an analysis of the
critical indicators that affect the SSI were determined. The critical environmental impact
indicators may be used by structural designers to improve their designs and to make their
structures more environmental friendly.
Keywords: Life cycle assessment, green building, sustainability, environmental impact,
structural sustainability index, Low-cost house, Philippines
1. Introduction
In designing a house, or any structure, there are three things commonly considered by the
structural engineer. Namely: safety, serviceability and cost. Safety and serviceability ensure
that the structure can fulfil its intended purpose by satisfying code requirements on strength,
ductility and deflections. Addressing economy, on the other hand, requires value engineering
to produce an optimum design with reasonable cost. There is now an increasing concern
about the environmental impact of structures (Kang et al 2007). Sustainability is a concern
that must also be addressed by structural engineers. Structural engineers must be able to
discriminate as to which materials and processes would have a lesser impact to the
environment, and to coordinate with the other stakeholders of the structure. The concept of
the study is to enable the structural engineer to analyze the sustainability of structural systems
in a quantifiable manner. But what parameter may be used to guide structural designers to
make their structures greener?
This paper proposes the use of a Structural Sustainability Index or SSI, a single-score based
on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework. The SSI was derived from five
environmental impacts based on the manufacturing only of the structural materials, whose
respective weights were determined from a survey of professionals. The SSI can be used for
ranking houses based on environmental impact and can be used as a parameter to guide
structural engineers in comparing various design alternatives and selecting greener
designs.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method of evaluating a product, in this case a house,
through its life cycle from cradle to grave. The life cycle of a building as specified in ISO
14040 throughout the implementation process follows five stages: (a) product stage - raw
material extraction and manufacturing of all its materials, (b) transport - refers to the raw
material extraction and manufacturing of all its materials, (c) construction process, (d) use
stage, (e) disposal - depending on circumstances and condition of the structure, it could either
be reused or demolished and recycled. Each stage has an impact on the environment. For this
paper, only the product stage or manufacturing and disposal of the materials is considered
since the choice of materials is one of the most important aspects for structural designer.
Hence, only the environmental impact of the materials in the production stage was assessed
using a life cycle inventory provided by Ecoinvent. Five environmental impacts and their
equivalent units are considered: (1) Human Toxicity (HT) in kg 1,4-DCB-Eq, (2) Ocean
Acidification (OA) in SO2-eq, (3) Global Warming Potential (GWP) in CO2-equivalent,
(4)Abiotic Material Depletion (AMD) in ELU units, and (5)Energy Use (EU) in points.
(c
(b) I Beam
(c) Convnetional
(d) Modified
(Fig
Full Modular: No columns were used. Load bearing concrete hollow blocks were
used for exterior walls. Conventional pouring was used for loft beam while beam
blocks were used for roof beams. T-Joists were used for slabs. 4 bedrooms, 2 Toilet
and bath
I Beam: Conventional concrete pouring and molding method for slabs. Hand packed
concrete was used for exterior walls. I-beams were used for beams and columns until
column footing. 3 bedroom, 1 Toilet and bath, Balcony, Carport
(c) Conventional: Conventional concrete pouring and moulding method for beams,
columns, slabs, and footings. Load bearing Concrete hollow blocks were used for
exterior walls. Beam blocks were used for the roof girder. 3 bedrooms, 1 Toilet and
bath
(d) Modified: Vertical wall stiffener and Horizontal wall stiffener were used. One column
+ footing was used. Non-load bearing concrete hollow blocks was used for exterior
walls. Prestressed T-joists were used for slabs. Beam blocks were used for the roof
girder. 3 bedrooms, 1 Toilet and bath
(b)
For each housing unit, the structural system was broken down into seven major parts, namely
the wall footing, wall, beam, slab, column footing, column, and roof. For each component,
the volumes of concrete and steel were estimated. The estimated component volumes (cubic
meters) were converted into mass (kg) of cement, sand, gravel, and steel. They were
computed based on the obtained or assumed material densities, mix percentages for concrete,
and details for precast and prestressed members. From the computed mass of the materials,
the impacts were assessed using the Ecoinvent inventory database.
Aggregating the five environmental impact values into one score is then derived as a
Structural Sustainability Index or SSI. The five impact values have different units and to
be able to combine them a normalisation method was done to transform them to a single unit
to enable comparison. The normalisation used relative comparison, assigning the greatest
impact value the highest reference value of 1. The impact values of each house for the five
parameters were then divided by the greatest impact value among the houses for each
parameter. The normalised values will be between 0 and 1.
A survey of experts from the academe, industry and, suppliers was conducted to determine
the relative importance of the environmental impacts using Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP). In the survey, each of the five environmental impacts was pitted against the one
other, resulting in a 10-questionnaire survey. The survey resulted to the following weight
factors (GWP = 0.36, EU=0.26, AMD = 0.155, HT = 0.122, OA = 0.103).
The normalized values were used in the SSI computation, in conjunction with the weights
from obtained from a survey of experts. To compute the SSI, we take the sum of the product
of the weight factors and the corresponding normalized impact values as shown in the
formula:
5
Table 1 shows the summary of the structural sustainability indices of the four houses. The SSI
is an index between 0-1, with 1 being the most harmful to the environment. The index is a
relative value that compares houses against each other for ranking purposes. Table 1 shows
the comparison of the SSI for the four houses. Applying the SSI to a study of four houses, the
I Beam structure was found to be have the smallest SSI (most environment-friendly) while
the Conventional structure has the largest SSI. The main difference is in the use of material as
shown in Figure 2. The I Beam model used the largest amount of steel, but used the least in
all other categories. On the other hand, the conventional house had the highest use of cement,
and second-highest of sand and gravel. The SSI scores of the houses show that steel is
preferable to concrete.
Table 1. SSI of Four Types of House
Normalized
Impact
OA
GWP
EU
Full
Modular
0.756
0.754
0.901
HT
AMD
SSI
I Beam
Conventional Modified
0.679
0.561
0.747
1.000
1.000
1.000
0.899
0.897
0.899
0.705
0.875
0.496
1.000
1.000
0.908
0.893
0.838
0.805
0.682
0.986
0.888