City Research Online

Abstract

Life cycle assessment studies of precast construction methods highlight their superiority over traditional cast-in-situ construction in reducing buildings’ environmental impacts. Among the extensively used precast structural elements, hollow core precast slabs have proven benefits with their practical implementation in flooring systems across various flooring spans and live loads. This paper presents a case study comparing the global warming potential and embodied energy impacts of a recently developed lightweight prefabricated composite flooring system (PUSS) with hollow core precast slabs in the UK. The analysis is based on 16 live load/ flooring span scenarios, between 6 and 12m. The study examines the benefits and drawbacks of utilising different concrete types in PUSS flooring, namely normal weight concrete, lightweight aggregates concrete and geopolymer concrete. PUSS with GPC demonstrates potential savings of up to 50% in GWP compared with hollow core slabs, while PUSS with LWC exhibits potential savings of up to 35% in total EE compared with hollow core slabs.

Publication Type:	Article
Publisher Keywords:	Life cycle assessment (LCA); Prefabricated composite flooring systems; Precast flooring; Global warming potential (GWP); Embodied energy.
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TH Building construction
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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