Consideration of strength and service life in cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of self-compacting concrete in a maritime area: a study in the Brazilian context

Abstract

One solution for reducing the environmental impact of the civil construction industry is to incorporate by-products and waste from other industries into materials such as concrete, which is the most commonly used construction material. Therefore, this study presents a comparison of the production of self-compacting concrete containing mineral admixtures in a Brazilian context. To compare mixtures fairly, it is necessary to use indicators that incorporate all the relevant aspects; therefore, two environmental impact indicators were used, considering mechanical strength and service life (SL) as parameters. The concrete mixtures studied contained ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash at replacement levels of 20, 30, and 40%. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method that can be used to quantify the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle. SimaPro software was used as a tool to perform the LCA. To assess the durability of concrete, the SL of each mixture was estimated using Life-365 software. The difference in the clinker transportation of different cement suppliers was an important parameter in the analysis. Based on all of the indicators analyzed, it was concluded that utilization of the highest GGBFS content in the cement was the environmentally preferable solution.