Giustozzi, F (2012) Life cycle assessment of sustainable road pavements: Carbon footprinting and multi-attribute analysis. PhD thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA.
Abstract
Sustainability is increasingly becoming a significant part of strategic asset management worldwide. Road agencies are providing guidelines to assess the relative sustainability of road projects. Unfortunately, environmental features of a road project are still considered as standalone evaluations, an added value. Very little has been done to integrate environmental impacts as a part of pavement management systems and other decision support tools to choose between different strategies. In this way, being awarded with a “green” certificate for a specific road project could result in the belief that recognition would correspond to the optimal strategy. Furthermore, a road project awarded with a “green” rating during the construction phase does not mean that the project results “green” if a life cycle approach is considered. Indeed, the most environmental friendly strategies may not be the ones with the highest performance. Using “greener” materials or performing recycle-related practices may lead to a lower performance over the life cycle and therefore produce an increase in maintenance needed, which could in turn result into more congestion due to work zones and higher total emissions. Therefore, construction and maintenance strategies should be analyzed according to three main parameters: cost, performance or effectiveness, and environmental impacts. The cost analysis part takes into account outflows over the service life of the pavement according to the well-known Life Cycle Cost Analysis methodology. The cheapest maintenance technique over the analysis period was expounded and sensitivity analyses to involved factors were conducted. Performance assessment was developed according to experimental on site data gathered and analyzed over several years to develop deterioration pavement models. Effectiveness of maintenance treatments is further provided and compared to the volume of traffic. In addition, environmental impacts related to maintenance and rehabilitation strategies were analyzed. Emissions were computed over the life cycle of the pavement from the manufacture of raw materials for the initial construction, placement, and maintenance phase. Finally, an optimization procedure was developed for including environmental impacts into a Pavement Management System. A methodology to set a multi-attribute approach system, computing costs, performance, and eco-efficiency over the life cycle of the pavement, is therefore proposed.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Flintsch, G W |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | decision support; optimization; sustainability; traffic; asset management; computing; construction phase; deterioration; life cycle; rehabilitation; service life; cost analysis; life cycle cost; pavement; environmental impact |
| Index terms: | methodology, multi-attribute analysis, computing, environmental impact, agency, recycle, deterioration, cost analysis, placement, sensitivity analysis, management system, decision support, asset management, life cycle assessment, strategy, life cycle cost, effectiveness, construction phase, performance assessment, road project, service life, added value, becoming, eco-efficiency, life cycle, life cycle cost analysis |
| Subjects: | computing systems, value management, project delivery, financial and cost management, material degradation and durability, economics, performance management, management, decision analysis, sociology, waste management, environmental impact, economic analysis, research methods, sustainability assessment, infrastructure engineering, assessment methods, asset management, environmental hazards, philosophical process |
| Topics: | Project Management, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Sustainability, Quality Management, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Research Practice, Construction Materials, Digital Applications, Human Resources, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here