Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Bridges

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a detailed comparative environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) case study of three built bridges in Norway. To encompass a wide scale of bridge designs, the analysis dealt with a steel box girder bridge, a concrete box girder bridge, and a wooden arch bridge. This study presents the first LCA of road bridges using a standardized bridge classification. The LCA includes a wide range of pollutants and a high level of detail in life cycle material and energy consumption. Findings here and from earlier LCAs on bridges are together used as bases for general recommendations on conducting LCAs on bridges. The study shows that it is the production of materials for the main load-carrying systems (i.e., the bridge superstructure) and the abutments that accounts for the main share of the environmental impacts, as these parts require large quantities of materials, with a limited number of materials being the important ones. The construction phase accounts for relatively fewer impacts. The...