COMPARISON OF LCA ON STEEL- AND CONCRETE-CONSTRUCTION OFFICE BUILDINGS:A CASE STUDY

A life-cycle inventory model for the office buildings is developed in this paper. The environmental effectsof two different building structures, steel and concrete, are intercompared. The results show that thesteel-framed building is superior to the concrete-framed building on the following two indexes, thelife-cycle energy consumption and environmental emissions of building materials. It is found that thelife-cycle energy consumption of building materials per area in the steel-framed building is 24.9% asthat in the concrete-framed building, whereas, on use phase, the energy consumption and emissions ofsteel-framed building are both larger than those of concrete-framed building. As a result, lower energyconsumption and environmental emissions are achieved by the concrete-framed building comparedwith the steel-framed building on the whole life-cycle of building. The present study also provides agood method of assessing the performance of energy saving and environmental protection of differentbuilding structures based on a whole life-cycle.