Life cycle assessment of interior partition walls: Comparison between functionality requirements and best environmental performance

This research analyses 44 interior partition walls (IPW) in the context of Spanish residential sector and establish the systems’ environmental profile through the application of the life cycle assessment technique. The analysis is performed within the stages of production to construction (“from crad...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Valencia Barba, Yovanna Elena|||0000-0002-0252-3433, Gómez Soberón, José Manuel Vicente|||0000-0002-7736-1504, Gómez Soberón, M. Consolación, Rojas Valencia, María Neftalí
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/353595
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/353595
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2021.102978
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Walls
Building materials
Murs
Materials de construcció
tecniques de cons
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Edificació::Materials de construcció
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Edificació::Tècniques i sistemes constructius
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Edificació::Elements constructius d'edificis::Elements de tancament
Descripción
Sumario:This research analyses 44 interior partition walls (IPW) in the context of Spanish residential sector and establish the systems’ environmental profile through the application of the life cycle assessment technique. The analysis is performed within the stages of production to construction (“from cradle to handover” approach), using Ecoinvent as background database and ReCiPe as the impact assessment methodology. The analysis combines the technical requirements with the environmental data to establish the profile of the different multi-layer construction systems, with the objective of supporting the selection of the optimal elements from the design phase and promoting the development of regulations to include considerations of the embodied environmental impact in the constructive systems. The results show that the product stage has the greatest contribution to the environmental impact (78% average), followed by transport (21% average) and construction with <1% average. A layer contribution analysis shows that the contribution of greater representativity can vary according to the nature of the materials used and that the base layer is the element with greater generation of emissions in most of the IPW (48% average), followed by the exterior layer (30% average) and the insulation and plaster layers with 12% and 11% respectively. The results emphasize the importance of including the technical requirements and evaluating the multi-layer components as an entire element, rather than evaluating single products, in order to obtain more representative and trustworthy results for real practice application.