Is BIM an effective methodology to integrate LCA in the buildings’ design? Case study: building of the University of Aveiro
Creators: name: Aljundi
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: 90599 Civil Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Civil engineering
subject: FOS: Civil engineering

description: The buildings’ sector has been growing since the industrial revolution and<br>consequently it has been contributing increasingly to the world negative<br>environmental impacts, such as global warming, smog emissions and climate<br>changes. Thus, more sustainable buildings are needed, since it is essential to<br>reduce the negative impacts of the construction sector.<br>Indeed, since the construction process starts selecting construction materials<br>with less environmental impacts and high durability that are essential to reach<br>more sustainable constructions, particularly when applying it from the early stage<br>of design phase.<br>During the last century, sustainability concept and strategies have been<br>developed significantly, providing the Scientific and Technical community with<br>various methodologies and systems aiming to promote real sustainable<br>buildings, such as LCA, and labelling and assessing systems like BREEAM and<br>LEED.<br>On the other hand, the construction and design sectors have recently been facing a new technology revolution with the Building Information Modelling – BIM, approach. In fact, BIM is a methodology in which the architectural and engineering areas can be modelled, cooperated and managed at the same time, in the same file and environment and since the early stages of the design. Thus, BIM provides less errors in the construction and operation phases in a much<br> ore organised and systematic approach.<br>This work analyses the building of Communication and Art Department of the University of Aveiro, which was designed as a sustainable building according the energy efficiency. LCA methodology was used to calculate the environmental<br>impacts of three different structural solutions (mixed, steel and concrete) in a Cradle-to-Cradle perspective, considering two life spans: a 50-year life span and a 100-year one. Throughout this case study, applying LCA in the construction<br>sector was experienced using two approaches: (i) LCA traditional approach using SimaPro and BIM-3D model; and (ii) BIM-based LCA using Tally and BIM-3D model.<br>This comparison showed that there are various obstacles when applying LCA in the construction sector, particularly the (in)existence of specific database, since they influence LCA results. Moreover, those two approaches highlighted the potential advantages that LCA integration with BIM could add to the construction sector, in general, and particularly to sustainable construction.<br>This study also concludes that the concrete structure has less global warming impacts than the others that were considered.<br>Finally, this work showed the necessity and the potentiality of integrating LCA in BIM in the construction sector. In addition, it concludes the need to develop a<br>national database of construction materials and techniques that could minimise the errors and the uncertainty of LCA calculations whether using LCA traditional approach or BIM-based approach.