Scope and Goal
The LCA of the kindergarten main structure system and exterior elements of a building aims to assess the environmental impact of these components over their entire life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life. In our assessment, the system decommissioning is not considered. The scope of the assessment will include the roof, frames, foundation, bridge railing, and water pipes.
The LCA will consider the embodied energy and resource use required to produce the materials used in construction, as well as the energy use and maintenance requirements during the operational phase of the building. The impact of decommissioning processes will not be considered. Figure 1 shows the goal and the boundary of this assessment.
Figure 1: LCA goal and boundary
Life Cycle Inventory
An Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is a crucial component of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that involves gathering data on the inputs and outputs of the system over its entire life cycle. This includes data on the extraction and processing of raw materials, transportation, production, use, maintenance, and end-of-life disposal or recycling.
The LCI provides a comprehensive picture of the resources used and emissions generated by a product or system and forms the basis for subsequent life cycle impact assessment. This data can be used to identify areas where improvements can be made to reduce the environmental impact of a product or system.
The LCI, performance and environmental indicators of the materials required for this assessment are shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Inventory of materials, emissions and energy consumptions.
Life Cycle Analysis
In this assessment, we have chosen the 5 best options in each subsystem.
Main system: Kindergarten Main Structure
a) Foundation: Reinforce concrete isolated foundation
b) Frame: Timber frame
c) Roof: Marble and concrete roof
Exterior system:
d) Bridge railing system: precast concrete posts and timber rails
e) Pipe: PVC water pipe
The integrated subsystem maintenance planning serves as an input to the entire LCA, and the five subsystems’ individual life-cycle maintenance interventions are taken into account when calculating the overall LCA’s impact on the environment, energy consumption, and emissions of CO2, NOx, and SO2, which are major contributors to the global warming issue. The following table shows the result of LCA：
Table 2: Result of LCA
Figure 5 depicts the emissions and energy consumption analyses of the integrated system. It is evident that the system’s energy consumption of 16% and CO2 emissions of 79%, the highest among all emissions and energy, constitute its primary environmental impact. NOx and SO2 are also released, albeit in a negligible amount. The combined system’s SO2 output is around 1% and NOx emission is 4%.
Figure 2: Energy consumption and emissions
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