Evaluation of dry wall system and its features in environmental sustainability

Abstract

Climate change on Earth has been intensified after the industrial revolution, resulted from some factors such as an increase in ambient temperature, greenhouse gases of the atmosphere and environmental pollutants.Nowadays, sustainable solutions are developing to resolve this problem, and sustainable development, as one of these approaches is situated on the world’s top programs, in order to achieve the protection of the environment and natural resources, correct and efficient management and utilization of the basic, natural and financial resources and achieving an optimal consumption pattern. New forms and types of materials used in modern buildings such as eco-friendly materials have important effects on superiority of contemporary sustainable constructions. The eco-friendly materials were described in current study, while the dry wall was also investigated, which its use has increased dramatically due to the importance of speed in construction of buildings and pre-fabricated structures. Thus, the present study was designed to investigate the characteristics of dry wall and its effects on the environment. The production and consumption of dry wall evaluated based on LCA and how to recycle its waste was done according to WARM’s model. In the following, a residential building was studied and the simulation of traditional building and the building with dry wall was performed to evaluate the amount of carbon dioxide production and fuel consumption in both cases. The simulation was done in current situation and future conditions till the year 2100. The results of the research showed that, the use of dry wall in construction causes a reduction of about 60% in fuel consumption as well as a decline of 22.5% in carbon dioxide production. Considering the climate changes in future, simulation results showed that the range of variations in energy consumption and carbon dioxide production for a dry-built building would be very low in 2030, 2050 and 2100, while variations in energy consumption and the production of carbon dioxide were found to be remarkable for the traditional building in these years. In general, maintaining sustained conditions and a significant reduction in resource consumption in the next century, obtained by implementing a dry-built building suggests the importance of using these materials to achieve the principles of sustainable architecture.