Comparative life cycle assesment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of precast and cast–in–place buildings in United States

Abstract

As precast construction is becoming more commonly used across the United States, many evaluation tools have been used to assess the environmental and economic impacts of this system. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Assessment (LCCA) are some of the most widely used tools to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of buildings’ entire life cycle. The research presented in this paper was designed to understand the comparative life cycle environmental impacts and costs over the complete life cycle for precast and cast-in-place (CIP) building systems. As such, a cradle-to-grave approach was used to develop a framework for assessing these impacts for precast and cast-in-place building systems constructed in the United States (US) while utilizing Open LCA software and NIST handbook for LCCA. A case study precast building in the U.S. was used to assess the environmental impacts and costs associated with the four phases (raw material extraction and manufacturing, installation/construction, operation, and demolition) were calculated and compared to a cast-in-place building system. The research findings showed that precast systems using sandwich panel building systems had 21% lower life cycle costs (LCC) compared to cast-in-place building system. The construction phase and operation phase also had 38% and 24% lower LCC compared to cast-in-place building systems. Additionally, lower life cycle environmental impacts towards nine environmental impact indicators were recorded for precast building systems. This study concluded that precast methodology has lower life cycle environmental and economic impacts than cast-in-place and can serve as a more efficient and sustainable construction method. The developed framework for LCA and LCCA could be applied to all concrete construction projects across the world and could be used as a platform for conducting future LCA and LCCA studies as well.