Environmental impact assessment of tall building structural design with precast and conventional building system on embodied energy and carbon emission

Abstract

This paper investigates the environment impact of different building design systems based on the embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon (EC). The hybrid life cycle assessment (HLCA) is used to assess the environmental impact of the buildings. The building models are simulated based on an existing architectural plan and the different types of building materials. The EE and EC is the subject of this study because most studies only focused on operational energy whereas EE and EC are often neglected. The models are simulated by using different type of structural design namely: (i) Hybrid structure; (ii) Tube in Tube structure; and (iii) Frame Tube Structure. The structural designs are conducted based on the Eurocode adopted in Malaysia which is: MS: EN 1992: Eurocode 1-Actions on structure; (ii) MS: EN 1992: Eurocdoe 2 – Design of concrete structures; (iii) MS 1553:2002. The buildings are modelled by using a typical floor plan and erected to 15 story height based on the proposed structural system. Based on the three simulated models, the least EE and EC produced is the hybrid type structural system where it provide the most effective structural arrangement to mitigate the loads imposed on the tall building. The EE and EC produced by using the conventional building system are 19211.69 GJ and 1638777.29 kg CO2-e whereas for the precast building system, the EE and EC are 23508.49378 GJ and 2005172.78 kg CO2-e. According to these values, the precast building model have 22.37% more EE than the conventional building models. Meanwhile, the EC emitted for the precast type are 22.36% more than the conventional type building system. This is mainly due to the high safety consideration while constructing precast concrete elements in the factory where it utilize high grade of concrete and more reinforcement steel.