Determining the Environmental Potentials of Urban Pavements by Applying the Cradle-to-Cradle LCA Approach for a Road Network of a Midscale German City (original) (raw)
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Sustainability, 2020
Recycled and low-temperature materials are promising solutions to reduce the environmental burden deriving from hot mix asphalts. Despite this, there is lack of studies focusing on the assessment of the life-cycle impacts of these promising technologies. Consequently, this study deals with the life cycle assessment (LCA) of different classes of pavement technologies, based on the use of bituminous mixes (hot mix asphalt and warm mix asphalt) with recycled materials (reclaimed asphalt pavements, crumb rubber, and waste plastics), in the pursuit of assessing energy and environmental impacts. Analysis is developed based on the ISO 14040 series. Different scenarios of pavement production, construction, and maintenance are assessed and compared to a reference case involving the use of common paving materials. For all the considered scenarios, the influence of each life-cycle phase on the overall impacts is assessed to the purpose of identifying the phases and processes which produce the greatest impacts. Results show that material production involves the highest contribution (about 60-70%) in all the examined impact categories. Further, the combined use of warm mix asphalts and recycled materials in bituminous mixtures entails lower energy consumption and environmental impacts due to a reduction of virgin bitumen and aggregate consumption, which involves a decrease in the consumption of primary energy and raw materials, and reduced impacts for disposal. LCA results demonstrate that this methodology is able to help set up strategies for eco-design in the pavement sector.
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2015
The aim of this work is to carry out a comparative analysis of environmental impacts for different scenarios of a typical local road. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the modeling tool used to quantify and characterize comparative environmental impacts. In carrying out this specific application of the LCA, different road construction techniques were considered with regards to the whole structure and compared in order to identify the best alternative in terms of environmental sustainability.
Sustainability
Life cycle assessment (LCA) tools have been used by governments and city administrators to support the decision-making process toward creating a more sustainable society. Since LCA is strongly influenced by local conditions and may vary according to various factors, several institutions have launched cooperation projects to achieve sustainable development goals. In this study, we assessed the potential environmental enhancements within the production of road materials applied to the road network of Münster, Germany. We also compared traditional pavement structures used in Münster and alternative options containing asphalt mixtures with larger amounts of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Although the case study was conducted in Münster, the data collected and the results obtained in this study can be used for comparison purposes in other investigations. In the analysis, we considered all environmental impacts from raw material extraction to the finished product at the asphalt plant. ...
Environmental Science & Technology, 2013
The subject of this paper is an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of processes needed to construct and maintain representative Swiss asphalt, concrete, and composite pavements (including subbase layers) applicable for the Swiss national road network over a period of 75 years. The environmental indicators analyzed are the global warming potential indicator, the nonrenewable cumulative energy demand, and the Swiss ecological scarcity indicator. Processes of the use phase of the road (fuel consumption, noise, etc.) have been evaluated qualitatively based on intensive research. The study shows that the global warming potential of concrete and asphalt pavements equilibrates over the analysis period and that concrete pavements compared to asphalt and composite pavements offer advantages in regards to the nonrenewable cumulative energy demand, the ecological scarcity indicator, and life cycle costs. The qualitative evaluation of the processes of the use phase shows for example the positive qualities of concrete pavements regarding fuel consumption and permanent noise properties.
Integrated sustainability assessment of asphalt rubber pavement based on life cycle analysis
Pavement Life-Cycle Assessment, 2017
Pavement, as one of the major components of the infrastructure system, plays an important role in the development of civilization and economic prosperity. Currently, the booming transportation and the increasing awareness of sustainable development have attracted significant research interest in reducing the negative environmental and social impacts of pavement during its construction and service. In 2005, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road transportation accounted for 12.5% to 13.0% of global total emissions (ASTAE, 2009), while pavement condition heavily affects vehicle emissions and fuel consumption. For instance, rough pavement surface has been reported to negatively affect vehicle fuel economy (Chatti and Zaabar 2012). Though the environmental impact variables in a pavement life-cycle are complicated, some sustained efforts have been made to minimize the environmental burdens from pavement projects, for example, many recycled materials, such as reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and waste tire rubber, are now being used in pavement construction to conserve raw material resources without compromising pavement performance. Asphalt rubber (AR), which is composed of raw asphalt and at least of 15% of waste tire rubber as modifier, is one good example of using waste materials in pavement. However, AR has received different popularities in different areas around the world, because on one hand it provides various benefits, such as recycling waste tires (Caltrans, 2013), enhancing pavement performance, and reducing tire-road noise (
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2014
In order to assess sustainability of products and processes, different methodologies have been developed and used in the last years. In the road pavement construction area, most methodologies used for life cycle assessment (LCA) are essentially focused in the construction phase. The present paper analyses the importance of the use phase of a road in the LCA of different paving alternatives, namely by evaluating energy consumption and gaseous emissions throughout the road pavement's life. Therefore, a new LCA methodology for road pavements was developed, and the results of its application to a case study involving the construction of alternative pavement structures are discussed. The study intends to assess the influence of using more sustainable paving construction alternatives (asphalt recycling vs. conventional asphalt mixtures), and/or different surface course materials (which have a higher influence on the rolling resistance and, therefore, affect the performance during the use phase). The LCA results obtained for this case study showed that the reductions in energy consumption and gaseous emissions obtained during the use phase, for pavement alternatives with a lower rolling resistance surface course, are higher than the total amount of energy consumption and gas emissions produced during construction. It is therefore clear that some improvements in the characteristics of the surface course may have an effect over the road use phase that will rapidly balance the initial costs and gas emissions of those interventions. The LCA results obtained also showed that the sustainability of pavement construction may also be improved using recycled asphalt mixtures.
2020
Pavements act as an essential component of civil infrastructure for supporting transportation, economic development, and improvement of life quality. With ever-increasing road mileages and emerging functional requirements, simple procedures and cumulative but unmethodical personnel experience that worked previously are no longer able to manage the continuous expansion of pavement networks. In addition, conventional approaches to maintaining huge pavement network in satisfactory condition inevitably result in considerable budget and environmental burdens. This exacerbates tensions between the multi-dimensional pillars of sustainability (environment, society, and economics) which decision-makers must balance. Consequently, it is a critical part for developing an effective and efficient pavement management system.
Sustainability
Transportation infrastructure is one of the largest consumers of natural materials. To improve the environmental quality and sustainable development of transportation infrastructure, it is important to implement sustainable strategies in pavement construction and rehabilitation. The use of recycled materials is a key element in generating sustainable pavement designs to save natural resources, reduce energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and costs. The objective of this study was to propose a methodology for assessing the environmental and economic life-cycle benefits when using recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) materials in highway projects. Previous studies on life cycle analysis (LCA) using RAP focused on the economics and/or environmental impacts during the material production process. Thus, there is a need to consider sustainability analysis at all stages of construction and rehabilitation during the performance period of pavement structures. This study addresses this need with the p...
Comparison of Life-Cycle Assessment Tools for Road Pavement Infrastructure
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Road pavements have considerable environmental burdens associated with their initial construction, maintenance, and usage, which have led the pavement stakeholder community to join efforts to understand and mitigate these negative effects better. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a versatile methodology for quantifying the effect of decisions regarding the selection of resources and processes. However, there is a considerable variety of tools for conducting pavement LCA. This paper provides the pavement stakeholder community with insights into the potential differences in the life-cycle impact assessment results of a pavement by applying American and European LCA tools, namely, PaLATE Version 2.2, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute–University of California asphalt pavement LCA model, GaBi, DuboCalc, and ECORCE-M, to a Spanish pavement reconstruction project. Construction and maintenance life-cycle stages were considered in the comparison. On the basis of the impact assessment m...
Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2017
Stakeholders in the pavement sector have been seeking new engineering solutions to move towards more sustainable pavement management practices. The general approaches for improving pavement sustainability include, among others, reducing virgin binder and virgin aggregate content in HMA and WMA mixtures, reducing energy consumed and emissions generated in mixtures production, applying in-place recycling techniques, and implementing preventive treatments. In this study, a comprehensive and integrated pavement life cycle costing-life cycle assessment model was developed to investigate, from a full life cycle perspective, the extent to which several pavement engineering solutions, namely hot in-plant recycling mixtures, WMA, cold central plant recycling and preventive treatments, are efficient in improving the environmental and economic dimensions of pavement infrastructure sustainability, when applied either separately or in combination, in the construction and management of a road pavement section located in Virginia, USA. Furthermore, in order to determine the preference order of alternative scenarios, a multicriteria decision analysis method was applied. The results showed that the implementation of a recycling-based maintenance and rehabilitation strategy where the asphalt mixtures are of type hot-mix asphalt containing 30% RAP, best suits the multidimensional and conflicting interests of decision-makers. This outcome was found to be robust even when different design and performance scenarios of the mixtures and type of treatments are considered.