Environmental life cycle assessment of ground reinforcement using rigid inclusions
Environmental life cycle assessment of ground reinforcement using rigid inclusions
There are increasing societal and political concerns about the consequences of human activities on climate change and other environmental issues. In that sense, methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are being developed to evaluate technical systems based on their function, considering the whole life cycle in a multi-criteria approach. Applied to the construction sector since the 1990s, particularly to buildings and other civil engineering structures, little has been done so far on geotechnical works specifically. This contribution seeks to present an application of LCA to soil reinforcement solutions in the framework of the ASIRI+ National Project. The objectives of the assessment are, first, to quantify the environmental impacts potentially generated when implementing rigid inclusions as ground improvement techniques, and second, to compare them with the impacts of other possible solutions. The study highlights the contribution of materials such as cement, lime and steel to the overall impacts, and particularly climate change, the importance of optimizing their use when designing and implementing solutions, and the need for contextualized data for such materials. It also stresses the importance of extending the limits of the assessed system to include foundations, and not to strictly focus on rigid inclusions.
M. Saade; E. Antoinet
18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)
E - Environment, water and energy
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