A multi-criteria lifecycle assessment framework for evaluating building systems design

• Published in: Journal of Building Engineering 2019-05, Vol.23, p.388-402
• Main Authors: BuHamdan, Samer, Alwisy, Aladdin, Barkokebas, Beda, Bouferguene, Ahmed, Al-Hussein, Mohamed
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Building systems technical performance; Construction industry; Design assessment; Multi-criteria assessment; Sustainable construction
• ISSN: 2352-7102; 2352-7102
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2019.02.010

The increasing economic challenges and the environmental responsibilities the construction industry is facing necessitate reductions in the cost and environmental impact of buildings through their lifecycle without compromising the performance of building systems. In response to these challenges, this paper proposes a framework that (i) incorporates the behaviour of building systems (e.g., heating system and building envelope) to account for the interdependencies amongst the building systems, and (ii) evaluates the design of building systems in order to reduce their lifecycle cost and environmental impact. The proposed framework utilizes the failure model (i.e., the survivor function and Mean Time To Failure) of Reliability theory to model the behaviour of building systems during operations and measures the performance of these systems (i.e., assessing the time to failure) and multi-objective optimization to find the design alternative that reduces the impact of the assessment criteria and increase the performance of building systems as per the failure model. A case study is also presented in this paper in order to illustrate the application of the proposed framework during the design. The case study shows that the application of the proposed framework contributes to reducing the lifecycle negative impact of building systems on cost, fossil fuel consumption, Global Warming Potential, acidifications potentials, human health criteria, eutrophication potential, Ozon depletion potential, and smog potential, while increasing the lifespan (i.e. the selected performance measure) of the heating systems. [Display omitted] •A framework for multi-criteria lifecycle assessment of building systems in the construction industry is proposed.•The framework evaluates the building systems design to reduce their lifecycle cost and environmental impact.•The framework incorporates the potential technical performance of the building systems in the evaluation process.•The case study shows the application of the proposed framework will reduce the impact of the assessment criteria (i.e. lifecycle cost, fossil fuel consumption, Global Warming Potential, acidifications potentials, human health criteria, eutrophication potential, Ozon depletion potential, and smog potential), while at the same time increase the technical performance of the assessed building systems as per selected measures.