Sustainability evaluation for selecting the best optimized structural designs of a tall building

Abstract

To resolve social and environmental issues and prepare the required residences in megacities, a sustainable development analysis of the structural designs should be carried because a building is designed for a long life span. Based on CEN TC350, life cycle assessment (LCA) indicators, and EN standards, the life cycle assessment of a building should be conducted in the initial steps of the design process. The main target of this study is related to the sustainability evaluation of the optimized structural designs by the various lateral force-resisting system to select the best structural system for a tall building. According to interviews with 28 experts, condition and location of the study area, and intensive observation, 12 lateral force resisting systems were proposed to design a 17-storey five-bay structure. Each structural design was optimized by the optimization modules of SAP2000. Eleven indicators were selected based on data availability, experts' opinions, and authors' opinions. The weight and effect value (EV) of changes intensity were calculated based on interviewing experts. The values of the indicators were calculated using an indirect and direct manner based on SAP2000 results. A technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach was employed for integrating the values of the proposed indicators. Moreover, an applied effect of changes intensity in each indicator (AECIEI) method, which is one of the simplified MCDA approaches, was utilized to evaluate the sustainability of all scenarios. After sorting all scenarios based on TOPSIS and AECIEI, the results of these methods were compared. The results show that AECIEI can apply the effect of changes intensity and critical indicator on sustainability evaluation; thus, its results are more accurate than the results of TOPSIS. The combination of the steel moment frame and the special reinforced concrete shear wall in both directions was chosen as the best optimized structure based on AECIEI's results. This scenario with sustainable value (SV) of 0.014 was selected as the best option with respect to ductility with a value of 4.17 and the emitted air pollution with a value of 20.40 Ton.