Search results for " LCA"
showing 10 items of 36 documents
Impact Analysis Using Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Production from Primary Data
2020
Road construction and maintenance have a great impact on the environment, owing to the huge volumes of resources involved. Consequently, current production procedures and technologies must be properly investigated, for identifying and quantifying the life cycle environmental impacts produced. In this paper, primary data, i.e., site-specific data directly collected or measured on a reference plant, are analyzed for calculating the impact of the production of a hot mix asphalt. The analysis is performed in a from &ldquo
A bottom-up harmonized energy-environmental models for europe (BOHEEME): A case study on the thermal insulation of the EU-28 building stock
2021
Abstract The paper presents a methodological approach, called “BOttom-up Harmonized Energy-Environmental Models for Europe” (BOHEEME), that combines bottom-up modeling, energy dynamic simulation, and life cycle assessment for evaluating and comparing the energy and environmental effects of different renovation strategies of the residential EU building stocks, from micro to the macro level. The study defines 672 building models representative of the residential EU-28 building stocks built before 2010, called archetypes, and the improvement of their envelope, applying different insulation materials from a traditional one to bio-based materials and studying their environmental effects via LCA.…
Energy and environmental assessment of heritage building retrofit
2020
In the transition to a low-energy economy, the building stock renovation should address the reduction of the environmental impacts, by means of suitable energy retrofits oriented to meet current energy efficiency regulations, construction guidelines, and standards on comfort and operation. With regard to the historic segment of the building stock, suitable refurbishment policies are needed to avoid the loss of their heritage values, even if this is a complex issue requiring interdisciplinary approaches, dedicated diagnostic procedures, and specific tools. In this paper a suitable method for energy and environmental assessment specifically devoted to historical building retrofit, following a…
Comparison of the greenhouse gas emissions of a high-rise residential building assessed with different national LCA approaches– IEA EBC Annex 72
2020
Introduction: The international research project IEA EBC Annex 72 investigates the life cycle related environmental impacts caused by buildings. The project aims inter alia to harmonise LCA approaches on buildings. Methods: To identify major commonalities and discrepancies among national LCA approaches, reference buildings were defined to present and compare the national approaches. A residential high-rise building located in Tianjin, China, was selected as one of the reference buildings. The main construction elements are reinforced concrete shear walls, beams and floor slabs. The building has an energy reference area of 4566 m2 and an operational heating energy demand of 250 MJ/m2a. An ex…
Subtractive versus mass conserving metal shaping technologies: an environmental impact comparison
2015
The scientific studies in the domain of environmental sustainability of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes, as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource efficiency. Moreover, to properly evaluate the environmental impact of a given process, a standing-alone approach is no longer sufficient. In order to offer a valuable contribution in the domain of metal shaping sustainability, the present paper proposes a thorough methodology entailing to compare, from the environmental point of view, two tr…
Tuning Decision Support Toolsfor Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing Approach Selection
2017
Awareness about the environmental performance of manufacturing approaches has arisen. Comparative analyses of different manufacturing approaches as well as decision support methods should be developed in the field of metal shaping processes. The present paper aims at tuning a decision support tool for identifying when mass conserving approaches (forming based) are actually preferable over machining processes for manufacturing aluminum based components. A full LCA is developed for comparing the environmental performance of forming and machining approaches as the batch size and geometry complexity hang. The impact of the used metric on the comparative results is analyzed. Results reveal that …
Environmental comparison between a hot extrusion process and conventional machining processes through a Life Cycle Assessment approach
2014
Nowadays manufacturing technologies have to be evaluated not only for the technical features they can provide to products, but also considering the environmental perspective as well. As long as the technological feasibility of a given process is guaranteed, processes minimizing resources and energy consumption have to be selected for manufacturing. With respect to this topic, the research studies in the domain of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource …
Coibenti per "cappotto" esterno. Valutazione con metodologia LCA
2010
Il settore dell’edilizia riveste un ruolo chiave per le future strategie europee di sostenibilità, in particolare la necessità di migliorare l’efficienza energetica degli edifici è oggi ampiamente riconosciuta e fa parte degli obiettivi del «20-20-20» posti dall’UE per il 2020. Nel presente studio la metodologia LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) è stata applicata alla scala dell’elemento tecnico nel settore edilizio, con riferimento al contesto siciliano. Inoltre sono stati confrontati i principali impatti associati al ciclo di vita di tre sistemi di coibentazione esterna a “cappotto” con polistirene espanso sinterizzato, lana di roccia e sughero espanso autocollato. L’obiettivo dello studio è qu…
La Life Cycle Assessment applicata all’edificio: metodologia e casi di studio sul sistema fabbricato-impianto
2017
L’edilizia è uno dei settori più rilevanti in termini di produzione di ricchezza e di occupazione, ma è anche responsabile di significativi consumi di risorse naturali e impatti ambientali. Si stima, infatti, che nell’Unione Europea l’edilizia sia responsabile del 50÷60% del consumo di risorse naturali, e tali percentuali sono destinate ad aumentare senza l’avvio di strategie e azioni orientate alla riduzione dei consumi di combustibili fossili e alla promozione delle risorse rinnovabili. Per migliorare l’eco-profilo del settore edile, la riduzione del consumo di risorse e la minimizzazione degli impatti ambientali negli ultimi anni costituiscono gli obiettivi principali da perseguire nella…
Effetti energetico-ambientali di interventi di retrofit su un edificio residenziale monofamiliare in area mediterranea
2017
Gli interventi di retrofit sugli edifici esistenti costituiscono soluzioni tecnologiche fondamentali al fine di ridurre i consumi energetici e gli impatti ambientali degli edifici in fase di uso e di raggiungere condizioni di comfort negli spazi confinati. Per poter raggiungere gli obiettivi fissati dall’Unione Europea relativi alla diminuzione dei consumi di energia del settore civile, occorre individuare quali siano gli edifici che per primi devono essere sottoposti a interventi di retrofit e devono individuare le azioni che intendono promuovere. Questo capitolo rappresenta un utile strumento, per le amministrazioni così come per gli utenti finali, per stimare il risparmio di energia cons…