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RESEARCH PRODUCT

AN INTEGRATED MODEL TO EVALUATE TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY OF ROAD PAVEMENT

subject

description

The unconditional exploitation of environmental resources, the emission of xenobiotic substances in nature and resulting pollution from the development of human activities have led, over time, to serious repercussions on the environment. Therefore these effects weigh on economic and social development. The need to deal with environmental issues and their relationship with economic development has led to the definition of sustainable development concept . The concept of sustainability combines three fundamental aspects which can not be separated, namely environmental, economic and social. The increasing sensitivity towards these socio-economic issues has driven research towards new fronts, using models that allow to evaluate the environmental sustainability and economic feasibility of any development process. In infrastructure engineering field the construction of a road infrastructure, be it road or rail, implies an articulated and complex series of actions and technical interventions which involve significant resources and entail an ever increasing environmental consumption. The construction or reconstruction of the entire flexible pavement structure or rail-track, or only on certain layers, is typical of the impoverishment of the environment because, depending on the extent of work, generally significant, large quantities of not-renewable resources such as stony aggregates, cement and binder are used. In addition to the impoverishment of the not-renewable resources, the environmental impact is closely related to the production technological processes that are strongly characterized by huge amounts of pollutant emissions. The integrated model consists of two approaches, namely the Life Cycle Assessment [LCA – UNI EN ISO 14040 – 14041 – 14042 – 14043; Green Book COM 2001/68/CE – 2003/302/CE; EMAS 1221/2009] and the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). These approaches, well established in the international field, allow to evaluate the environmental impacts linked to a product, process or activity, through the identification and quantification of mass balances concerning materials, energy and pollutant emissions released into the environment during production process since construction to operating phases such as maintenance and rehabilitation with regard to the LCA; whereas the LCCA allows to optimize the overall cost of a system and of its running considering its entire life cycle as suggested by DPR 207/2012 and by standard UNI CEI EN 16001 Energy Management Systems. The new model SPES – Sustainable Pavement Evaluation System resulting from the integration of LCA and LCCA would allow to conduct a complete analysis of the superstructure taking into account the steps of entire process, namely production, construction and maintenance and rehabilitation interventions; otherwise an application of single procedure could bring to incomplete or wrong conclusions and not properly founded. The management of maintenance interventions on road pavement should be base on economic and environmental criteria that entail the same objective: the reduction of resource’s consumption. Sometimes such management seems to prescind from both design and constructive aspects and bituminous mixtures and superstructure made of them and finally specific intervention techniques. The present thesis is determined to outline a description in which all above mentioned aspects are debated with the same analysis’ accuracy and summary’s completeness. In fact it considers as a fundamental principle the idea that the management process, in order to be really efficient, has to be ruled by a specialist who knows in depth not only management subject matters but also above all design, constructive and maintenance aspects of the treated theme. Definitively it considers the figure of Civil Engineer like an essential tool for road pavement management.