Environmental evaluation of pavement system incorporating recycled concrete aggregate

Abstract

Environmental benefits of using recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) regarding a concrete pavement structure should be evaluated because standard specification for RCA as a raw material in RMC is not currently in place in many locations. This work aims to address environmental benefits of using RCA of concrete pavement structures using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis. Two concrete mix designs and two mix ingredients containing RCA and natural aggregate (NA) are determined at 10% and 20% replacement levels. Results indicate that using RCA in pavements can result in decreases of environmental impacts regarding energy consumption, water consumption and CO2, PM10, and RCA waste generation, but result in increases of NOx and human toxicity potential (cancer and non-cancer) generation. Using the RCA in concrete pavement can ultimately reduce the negative environmental impacts, especially for energy consumption. Nonetheless, selecting the suitable concrete mix design should be carefully determined for each application since the negative environmental impacts can be significantly decreased.