Assessment on Embodied Energy of Non-Load Bearing Walls for Office Buildings

Abstract

Two important factors that have been put in the limelight in the current age are environmental concerns and sustainable future. The building sector has emerged as an important player in this matter due to their contribution into the large share of resources and energy consumption as well as harmful greenhouse gas emission. This paper discusses the percentage of embodied energy (EE) in two common building wall materials in Malaysia: steel and concrete. Concrete is used in concrete non-load bearing walls and steel is used to manufacture curtain walls. Although there are more materials used in the selected case studies, steel and concrete possess the high amount of embodied energy. Thus, the concrete wall and curtain wall in the lifecycle analysis (LCA) pre-use phase in high-rise office buildings in Malaysia are considered in this research. GaBi software is used to evaluate and calculate embodied energy in the case studies. The functional unit for this LCA study is determined as one cubic meter of concrete non-load bearing wall and curtain wall. In order to determine the components included in the analysis, input-output flowcharts are created for each process. The comparison of these walls shows that curtain wall has more embodied energy than concrete. The highest amount of embodied energy in curtain wall construction for case B is 4873.89 MJ, and for the case A is 4851.09 MJ approximately. The amount of EE in the concrete non-load bearing wall for both case studies are the lowest amount, with 278.85 MJ for case A and 280.66 MJ for case B. Results also show that the manufacturing of materials is the biggest contribution to the amount of EE at more than 50%, whereas transportation is between 1.83% and 3.77% only.

Comparison of the Embodied Carbon Emissions and Direct Construction Costs for Modular and Conventional Residential Buildings in South Korea

“…The life cycle of a building can be divided into three main stages: production, construction, and use and demolition [56][57][58][59]. The scope of the LCA's evaluation is, therefore, divided into "Cradle to Gate", "Cradle to Gate with Option", and "Cradle to Grave" [60][61][62]. "Cradle to Gate" assesses only the material production stage, and "Cradle to Grave" covers the entire life cycle of a building from the material production stage to the dismantling and disposal stage [63][64][65].…”

Cost and environmental impacts reduction through building compactness

“…The environmental impact of OE use is a well-established area of research and practice, with well-defined metrics, methodologies, building codes and regulations (Hu, 2020). Different authors argue that the better energy performance and efficiencies of the buildings have decreased the role of operating energy in a building's life cycle, compared to the EE, which plays an increasing role (Dixit et al , 2012; Dixit, 2019; Salehian et al , 2020). Under Dixit (2019), optimizing operating energy is also easier and more streamlined than EE because of the complexity of EE calculation.…”

“…Different authors highlight the importance of the exterior wall and the structural system in the total amount of EE and CO 2 emissions (Salehian et al , 2020; Hu, 2020; Sposto and Paulsen, 2012 and Paulsen and Sposto, 2013). In a case study conducted in a Brazilian social housing project constructed with structural ceramic block masonry, it was found that almost 60% of the EE resulted from the materials used to build the walls (Sposto and Paulsen, 2012).…”

“…Salehian et al (2020) and Paulsen and Sposto (2013) consider the essential effort toward decreasing building energy consumption is to utilize building materials that encompass a low EE. Another way to reduce EE in manufacturing building materials can be reached by using recycled and reused materials and to employ manufacturers closest to the building site (Salehian et al , 2020).…”