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Life cycle analysis for buildings and environmental impact

Trouli Kyriaki

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Summary

The objective of this diploma thesis has triple importance. (a) The primary target focuses on conduction results that reflect the environmental impacts that any building can bring throughout its life. (b) The secondary objective focuses on assessing these results, and in particular identifying parts of the building which are very likely to be involved in creating these environmental impacts. (c) The ultimate aim of this document is associated with replacement of materials of the most impact-intensive parts and, more general, with the discovery of the optimum combination of construction materials, which are contributed to reduction of the environmental impact of the building. This building consists of two-storey detached house, which has been designed in the area of ​​the Technical University of Crete in Chania, Greece. The Life Cycle Analysis tool used to conduct the results is Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings. Based on Life Cycle Analysis tool, the user has the ability to simulate a building after designing it. The actions taken by the user concern the registration of dimensions, building materials and energy consumptions. The geometry of the building was created using the SketchUp and the Autocad software. In addition, the house was modeled in OpenStudio to receive energy consumption data after the architectural design has been completed and the materials used for the construction of the building were selected. Furthermore, after the data entry and the simulation of the building in software the charge of the building against the environment was resulted.This burden arises cumulatively for all life building stages, concluding the production stage, which includes the extraction of the raw material from the environment, the transport of raw materials, the process of construction of the building, the installation process, the maintenance, repair, replacement of threadbare materials, refurbishment, functional energy use, functional use of water up to the end-of-life stage of the building including demolition restoration, transportation, waste treatment and disposal. More specifically, it contains the contribution of each department to the overall environmental impact of the building towards to environmental problems of the planet. The main environmental phenomena are global warming, fossil fuel consumption, acidification, particulate potential, ozone depletion and the Eutrophication potential. By presenting the contribution of each section separately to the overall environmental impact of the building, it is perceived which "parts" of the building were the least environmentally friendly and thus were made some changes according to the building materials. Those were found in these parts of the building in various combinations until the best possible solution was found.

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