Análisis del ciclo de vida en la construcción: evaluación de las etapas incorporadas de elementos de la vivienda y de su entorno urbano
- Autores: Diana Carolina Gámez García
- Directores de la Tesis: José Manuel Vicente Gómez Soberón (dir. tes.), Ramón Corral Higuera (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2020
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Francesc Castells Piqué (presid.), Eva-María Llera Sastresa (secret.), Leonor Patricia Güereca Hernández (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Tecnología de la Arquitectura, de la Edificación y del Urbanismo por la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya
- Materias:
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
- Resumen
The construction sector has the potential to contribute to the achievement of essential objectives of sustainable development, such as the fight against climate change, the defense of the environment or the design of cities. This sector is responsible for generating high rates of greenhouse gas emissions and construction and demolition waste, in addition to the excessive consumption of non-renewable abiotic and energy resources. In the search to mitigate these negative consequences, tools have been developed that allow these environmental impacts to be managed, one of them is the life cycle analysis (LCA). This thesis aims to assess the applicability of LCA in the construction sector. Specifically, evaluate the embodied environmental impacts in the life cycle in the housing construction and its urban environment. In this thesis were evaluated i) twenty exterior walls and the most environmentally appropriate configurations were established, as well as a system of equations that defined their environmental behavior, ii) eighteen residential streets with alternatives that prioritized non-motorized flow, and their influence on environmental impacts (both studies through an LCA from the cradle to handover) and iii) six types of housing, where the materials used in the walls and windows were varied (through an analysis of the cradle to the grave). For the latter case, the environmental challenges of the residential sector in Mexico were also addressed. The databases used were BEDEC, CYPE Latam (quantification of materials) and ecoinvent (life cycle inventory). The environmental impact methods used were CML 2001, Ecoindicator 99, IPCC 2013, and CED. In this thesis it was corroborated that LCA is a methodology applicable in construction which, with the constant updating of the regulations, has allowed the obtaining of increasingly global and transparent results, allowing the expansion of LCA to new geographies. Also, it was found that the stage of the greatest contribution to the environmental detriment is that of the product, or those that involve a product (such as maintenance and replacement), while the stages related to the processes have a lower contribution, of these the transport was the most relevant. The elements with the highest potential for environmental damage were granite sidewalks, aluminum windows, XPS thermal insulation, and galvanized laminated plasterboard. It was confirmed that the most typical construction materials, such as those made with cement (concrete, mortar, among others), ceramic pieces of clay or steel, are high generators of greenhouse gases and energy consumers. On the other hand, it was found that prioritizing the human scale in street design reduces environmental impacts. The development of LCA from the cradle to handover (partial) allowed to establish a higher number of scenarios, compare them and find the most environmentally correct alternative; while the development of LCA from cradle to grave, allowed to know the environmental behavior of the entire life cycle; that is, the total impacts of housing and detect where the opportunities for improvement were located (although this meant the limitation of the scenarios due to the complexity of the study). The findings of this thesis allowed us to conclude that LCA has an essential potential in achieving sustainable evolution schemes, so its applicability in the construction sector is feasible and recommended (in emerging or developing countries it is suitable). Finally, it is concluded that LCA is a tool that can contribute to the achievement of the objectives of sustainable development and that it is essential to cope with the accelerated changes caused by the environmental damage generated by the construction sector.
