Urban Highway Life Cycle Assessment and Data Collection Methodology

Bloom, Eleanor; Horstmeier, Gregory; Ahlman, Angela Pakes; Edil, Tuncer B.

doi:10.18552/2016/scmt4s207

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…They also noticed that, in the case of Hot Mix Asphalt Recycling (HMAR)-the worst-case scenario between technologies-the addition of 30% and 50% RAP reduced the environmental indices. Bloom et al [29] carried out LCAs on recycled materials used for the reconstruction of a highway, converting the HMA to rigid pavement. These materials were fly ash, steel slag, RCA, RAS, and RAP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Alternative Pavement Rehabilitation Solutions: A Case Study

Plati

Tsakoumaki

2023

Sustainability

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In the context of sustainability, the pavement construction industry is taking a more holistic approach to environmental, economic, and social issues. In particular, pavements are believed to be responsible for up to 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions over the last century. Therefore, it is critical to include a tool to assess the environmental and health impacts of pavement construction or rehabilitation in the related design studies. This tool is called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). With this in mind, this case study examines two alternative solutions for the rehabilitation of an existing highway pavement: one using conventional materials and processes and one using conventional recycled materials and recycling processes. These two alternatives are ecologically evaluated using an LCA method to increase the importance of quantifying environmental and health impacts. By comparing the corresponding results, this study aims to quantitatively demonstrate how recycled materials and recycling processes contribute to the sustainability of pavements. As a final result, it is shown that the environmental and human health benefits are significant, even though the use of recycled materials and processes for pavements may be limited.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Alternative Pavement Rehabilitation Solutions: A Case Study

Plati

Tsakoumaki

2023

Sustainability

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“…Turk et al [6] and Bloom et al [7] also explored the partial and complete replacement of natural aggregate base course with recycled construction waste (RCW) to varying degrees of GHG reduction. Bloom, Canton, Ahlman and Edil [7] assessed the environmental benefits of RAP usage during the M&R stages of asphalt pavements in their United-States-based study. The authors employed a 4% replacement of the asphalt binder content by RAP and observed a significant reduction in GHG emissions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifecycle Analysis of Recycled Asphalt Pavements: Case Study Scenario Analyses of an Urban Highway Section

Hasan

Whyte

et al. 2022

CivilEng

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Roads account for a major part of energy/resource consumption and emission of GHGs, such as CO2, PM, NOx, O3, etc., due to high demand for virgin materials, specifically in developing regions. The applicability of recycled materials, such as recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) and other alternative approaches for, e.g., warm-mix asphalt (WMA), in developed countries is hindered by project-specific constraints and lack of empirical studies in these regions. Lifecycle assessment studies on the usage of these road options from actual projects in the developing countries can aid decision makers choose sustainable material approaches by providing case study examples as guidelines. To that end, this study analyses environmental in/out-flows for a traditional approach and multiple green approaches (RAP and WMA) for a major highway section in Abu Dhabi through a 30-year (2015–2045) lifecycle approach. Roadworks were modelled in SimaPro according to real-world conditions, and the expected burden mitigation in each stage is calculated. Benefits of using optimum RAP-based options and a virgin-material-based WMA case against the baseline virgin material case were also investigated. Results showed benefits of WMA as higher than replacing virgin asphalt with recycled asphalt (25% RAP asphalt base, 15% RAP binder and wearing courses). Land use (19%) and energy consumption (16%) showed the highest reduction, followed by ozone depletion (14%), ionizing radiation (11%), PM (8%), acidification (7%) and global warming potential (6%) across all pavement lifecycle stages and environmental indicators. Similar results were obtained for other scenarios with lesser degrees of reduction, which show the significance of replacing HMA with WMA for real-world projects, specifically in mega road projects in Abu Dhabi and the Middle East towards cutting the significant carbon footprint of asphalt pavements.

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“…The actual design including RAP was compared with a reference design using only virgin materials to evaluate the reduction in environmental impacts. Results indicated that the use of the recycled materials reduced impacts in most environmental aspects, including energy consumption (15–25% reduction) and CO 2 emissions (17–24% reduction) ( 20 ). Similarly, Zaumanis et al conducted an environmental effect and cost calculation for using 100% RAP mix and demonstrated reduction of emission by 35% while reducing the costs of materials by half ( 21 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost–Benefit Analysis of RAP–Sand Blend Applications in Road Construction

Mousa

2019

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

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Generally, the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) has been limited to asphalt mixes. Recently, this trend has changed to include using RAP in unbound pavement layers. However, the cost-effectiveness of this application is not well studied. This paper presents a methodology to conduct cost–benefit analyses for using RAP–sand blend in subgrade and subbase layers considering a general process of RAP–sand blend from different sources until it is used in construction. Eight scenarios of RAP–sand blend applications were considered. Each scenario has two pavement sections (control and alternative) and was evaluated using the mechanistic-empirical approach. The benefit of using RAP–sand blend in the alternative section was assessed in terms of saving in asphalt thickness under various equivalent single axle load (ESALs) ranging between 1 and 12 million. Four mixing options were identified, and results for Option 1 (fresh RAP and mixing at site) indicated significant saving ranging between –$ 0.48 and $9.29/m2 depending on the scenario of RAP blend utilization. The highest benefit–cost ratios were also achieved with this option. Estimated benefit–cost ratios ranged between 0.58 and 18.64 depending on the scenario and option considered in the analysis, with uneconomic situations associated with Scenario 3. In this analysis, no significant impact was found for ESALs when their values are above 1 million. Generally, the RAP–sand blend is more effective in reducing required asphalt thickness, especially when used as a subgrade or subbase layer below thinner unbound aggregate layers. The significant saving achieved may encourage future implementation of this blend.

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Urban Highway Life Cycle Assessment and Data Collection Methodology

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Alternative Pavement Rehabilitation Solutions: A Case Study

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Alternative Pavement Rehabilitation Solutions: A Case Study

Lifecycle Analysis of Recycled Asphalt Pavements: Case Study Scenario Analyses of an Urban Highway Section

Cost–Benefit Analysis of RAP–Sand Blend Applications in Road Construction

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