| 1. |
- Ek, Kristine, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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A harmonized method for automatable life cycle sustainability performance assessment and comparison of civil engineering works design concepts
- 2020
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Ingår i: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. - : IOP Publishing. - 1755-1307 .- 1755-1315. ; 588:5
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The life cycle sustainability performance of civil engineering works is increasingly important. The possibility to influence the sustainability of a project design is larger in the conceptual stage than in later stages. Better-informed decisions regarding design choices’ impact on sustainability can be made by comparing conceptual project designs based on an assessment of their life cycle sustainability performance. It is essential that concepts are assessed in a harmonized way and compared impartially. Current standards provide the general framework for the assessment of sustainability performance, but do not give detailed guidance on calculation of sustainability indicators and their aggregation. Since design in automated systems is becoming increasingly common, there is a growing need for machine-readable data and automatable assessment methods. Assessment methods which can be applied using open-access data is important to achieve fair competition. This paper aims to provide a method for life cycle sustainability performance assessment and comparison of civil engineering works design concepts, possible to apply using open-access Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and life cycle assessment (LCA) data. The purpose is to enable fair and automatable sustainability assessments of design concepts, to facilitate impartial comparisons of such assessments as a basis for choosing sustainable designs. A literature review of relevant standards and scientific papers on sustainability assessment of construction and civil engineering works was performed. A harmonized, fair and automatable method for life cycle sustainability assessment and comparison of civil engineering works design concepts, well-suited for optimization purposes, is presented. However, the aim currently limits categories and indicators possible to include. The proposed method includes guidance on the calculation of environmental, social and economic indicators, based on LCA, life cycle costing (LCC) and external costs, and aggregation using normalisation and weighting factors of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). The proposed method allows for an impartial comparison of the sustainability of design concepts, resulting in better-informed decisions.
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| 2. |
- Ek, Kristine H., 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Comparative tissue distribution of metals in birds in Sweden using ICP-MS and laser ablation ICP-MS
- 2004
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Ingår i: Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0090-4341 .- 1432-0703. ; 47:2, s. 259-269
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cadmium, copper, lead, palladium, platinum, rhodium, and zinc profiles were investigated along feather shafts of raptor and other bird species by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The distribution of external versus internal metal contamination of feathers was investigated. The species examined were peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus), and house sparrow (Passer domesticus) in Sweden. For habitat comparisons, total Cu, Ph, Zn, and Cd concentrations were analyzed by ICP-MS in feathers of the examined species as well as captive peregrine falcon. For investigation of metal distribution and correlation in different biological materials of raptors, total concentrations of Cu, Pb, Cd, and Zn were also investigated by ICP-MS in feathers, eggs, blood, feces, liver, and kidney of wild peregrine falcon from southwestern Sweden. Laser ablation of feathers revealed that Pb contamination is both external and internal, Zn contamination is internal, and Cd and Cu contamination is predominantly internal, with a few externally attached particles of high concentration. Pb, Cu, and Cd signal intensities were highest in urban habitats and contamination was mainly external in feathers. The background signal intensity of Zn was also higher in birds from urban habitats. The laser ablation profile of PGE (Pt, Pd, Rh) demonstrated that PGE contamination of feathers consists almost exclusively of externally attached PGE-containing particles, with little evidence of internally deposited PGE. Generally, total metal concentrations in feathers were highest in sparrowhawk and house sparrow due to their urban habitat. Total Cu, Zn, and Cd concentrations were highest in liver and kidney due to binding to metallothionein, while the total Pb concentration was highest in feces due to the high excretion rate of Pb. A decreasing temporal trend for Pb in feathers, showing that Pb levels in feathers have decreased since the introduction of nonleaded petrol, is also discussed.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Ek, Kristine H., 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental routes for platinum group elements to biological materials - a review
- 2004
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. ; 334-335, s. 21-38
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The increased use of platinum group elements (PGE) in automobile catalysts has led to concern over potential environmental and biological accumulation. Platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) and rhodium (Rh) concentrations have increased in the environment since the introduction of automobile catalysts. This review summarizes current knowledge concerning the environmental mobility, speciation and bioavailability of Pt, Pd and Rh. The greater proportion of PGE emissions is from automobile catalysts, in the form of nanometer-sized catalyst particles, which deposit on roadside surfaces, as evidenced in samples of road dust, grass and soil. In soil, PGE can be transformed into more mobile species through complexation with organic matter and can be solubilised in low pH rainwater. There are indications that environmentally formed Pd species are more soluble and hence more mobile in the environment than Rh and Pt. PGE can reach waterbodies through stormwater transport and deposition in sediments. Besides external contamination of grass close to roads, internal PGE uptake has been observed for plants growing on soil contaminated with automobile catalyst PGE. Fine particles of PGE were also detected on the surface of feathers sampled from passerines and raptors in their natural habitat, and internal organs of these birds also contained PGE. Uptake has been observed in sediment-dwelling invertebrates, and laboratory studies have shown an uptake of PGE in eel and fish exposed to water containing road dust. The available evidence indicates that the PGE, especially Pd, are transported to biological materials through deposition in roots by binding to sulphur-rich low molecular weight species in plants. PGE uptake to exposed animals have uptake rates in the following order; Pd > Pt > Rh. The liver and kidney accumulate the highest levels of PGE, especially Pd. Urinary Pd and Rh, but not Pt, levels are correlated with traffic intensity. Dental alloys may lead to elevated urinary Pt levels. Platinum is a well-known allergen, and Pd also shows a strong sensitisation potential.
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| 5. |
- Ek, Kristine H., 1975
(författare)
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Platinum Group Elements in Birds of Prey
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The environmental concentrations of Pd, Pt and Rh (three of the platinum group elements, PGE) have increased since the introduction of exhaust catalysts on automobiles. A limited understanding of the environmental distribution and effects of the platinum group elements has raised concern over their potential biological availability. To date, no research has been performed on the extent of and routes for PGE contamination in free-living animals at the top of food chains. This thesis presents the first results for PGE concentrations in birds of prey living in their natural habitat. A temporal increase of PGE concentrations in feathers from birds of prey, which is closely associated with the introduction of automobile catalysts, was found. Evidence is presented that PGE deposit on the feather surface as sub-micrometer airborne particles emitted from automobile catalysts. In contrast to Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn, PGE do not contaminate feathers internally from the blood. Palladium and Pt concentrations were significantly higher in feathers from birds dwelling close to the ground in urban areas compared to feathers from birds at a higher trophic level and birds with rural habitats. Baseline concentrations at the low ngg-1 level of Pt and Rh in sampled materials from birds of prey demonstrate that there is no biomagnification of PGE. In contrast to metals such as Cd, Cu and Zn, ingested or inhaled PGE does not result in a high PGE load for internal tissues such as liver and kidney, although slightly elevated levels in blood and liver indicates that PGE can be taken up internally in birds of prey. For Pd, however, results present tentative evidence of a higher mobility and possibly bioavailability compared to Pt and Rh.
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| 6. |
- Ek, Kristine H., 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Platinum group elements in raptor eggs, faeces, blood, liver and kidney
- 2004
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 334-335, s. 149-159
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The increased use of platinum group elements (PGE) in automobile catalysts and their emission into the environment has lead to a concern over environmental and particularly biological accumulation. Specimens of samples from raptors are useful for the investigation of the impact of PGE because these birds are found in both urban and rural environments and are invariably at the top of the food chain. Platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) and rhodium (Rh) concentrations were determined by quadrupole Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) in eggs of the sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) and the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), and in blood, liver and kidney of the peregrine falcon, while only Pt was determined in faeces of the peregrine falcon and the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus). PGE concentrations were higher in blood compared to both faeces and eggs, while liver and kidney concentrations were not elevated indicating no bioaccumulation through metallothionein pathways. A significant spatial trend could only be established for Pt in faeces. The general lack of a spatial trend is probably due to the widespread distribution of automobiles and the long-range transport of nanoparticles containing PGE, and because birds migrate and forage over large areas. No significant temporal trend could be established. Higher relative concentrations of Pd, followed by Rh and Pt, indicates a mobility gradient of Pd >> Rh > Pt.
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| 7. |
- Ek, Kristine, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Life Cycle Sustainability Performance Assessment Method for Comparison of Civil Engineering Works Design Concepts: Case Study of a Bridge
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. - : MDPI AG. - 1661-7827 .- 1660-4601. ; 17:21, s. 1-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Standardized and transparent life cycle sustainability performance assessment methods are essential for improving the sustainability of civil engineering works. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of using a life cycle sustainability assessment method in a road bridge case study. The method is in line with requirements of relevant standards, uses life cycle assessment, life cycle costs and incomes, and environmental externalities, and applies normalization and weighting of indicators. The case study involves a short-span bridge in a design-build infrastructure project, which was selected for its generality. Two bridge design concepts are assessed and compared: a concrete slab frame bridge and a soil-steel composite bridge. Data available in the contractor’s tender phase are used. The two primary aims of this study are (1) to analyse the practical application potential of the method in carrying out transparent sustainability assessments of design concepts in the early planning and design stages, and (2) to examine the results obtained in the case study to identify indicators in different life cycle stages and elements of the civil engineering works project with the largest impacts on sustainability. The results show that the method facilitates comparisons of the life cycle sustainability performance of design concepts at the indicator and construction element levels, enabling better-informed and more impartial design decisions to be made.
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| 8. |
- Ek, Kristine, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Multi-criteria decision analysis methods to support sustainable infrastructure construction
- 2019
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Ingår i: IABSE Symposium, Guimaraes 2019: Towards a Resilient Built Environment Risk and Asset Management - Report. ; , s. 1084-1091
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The construction of infrastructure projects represents a large sustainability impact, both positive and negative. Increased positive and reduced negative impacts can be achieved through better design and planning of the construction. To make more sustainable choices, well‐defined predictive sustainability assessment methods are required. Multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a well-suited method for predictive sustainability assessment. This paper evaluates two MCDA methods for sustainability assessment of infrastructure construction and exemplifies their application with two case studies. The aim of this paper is to discuss if the methods are suitable for identifying the most sustainable alternative during the procurement process of an infrastructure project. It is recommended that MCDA methods are further developed to comply with the recently published EN standard on sustainability assessment of civil engineering works.
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| 9. |
- Mathern, Alexandre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Multi-objective constrained Bayesian optimization for structural design
- 2021
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Ingår i: Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1615-1488 .- 1615-147X. ; 63:2, s. 689-701
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The planning and design of buildings and civil engineering concrete structures constitutes a complex problem subject to constraints, for instance, limit state constraints from design codes, evaluated by expensive computations such as finite element (FE) simulations. Traditionally, the focus has been on minimizing costs exclusively, while the current trend calls for good trade-offs of multiple criteria such as sustainability, buildability, and performance, which can typically be computed cheaply from the design parameters. Multi-objective methods can provide more relevant design strategies to find such trade-offs. However, the potential of multi-objective optimization methods remains unexploited in structural concrete design practice, as the expensiveness of structural design problems severely limits the scope of applicable algorithms. Bayesian optimization has emerged as an efficient approach to optimizing expensive functions, but it has not been, to the best of our knowledge, applied to constrained multi-objective optimization of structural concrete design problems. In this work, we develop a Bayesian optimization framework explicitly exploiting the features inherent to structural design problems, that is, expensive constraints and cheap objectives. The framework is evaluated on a generic case of structural design of a reinforced concrete (RC) beam, taking into account sustainability, buildability, and performance objectives, and is benchmarked against the well-known Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and a random search procedure. The results show that the Bayesian algorithm performs considerably better in terms of rate-of-improvement, final solution quality, and variance across repeated runs, which suggests it is well-suited for multi-objective constrained optimization problems in structural design.
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| 10. |
- Mathern, Alexandre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability-driven structural design using artificial intelligence
- 2019
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Ingår i: 20th Congress of IABSE, New York City 2019: The Evolving Metropolis - Report. ; , s. 1058-1065
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The construction industry is responsible for a large share of the global environmental impact. The need for addressing sustainability and increased competition calls for the development of innovative design methods that include sustainability in a transparent way. The aim of this work is to propose a framework to use machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for structural design optimization based on sustainability and buildability criteria. AI opens up new possibilities to optimize and assess structures early in the planning and design stages. In that way, it is possible to decrease the negative and enhance the positive environmental, economic and social impacts and create a more time‐ and cost‐effective design process. The work is meant to serve as a first step toward the development of AI‐based methods in the construction industry, which can bring digitalization in the construction industry to a new level and create new services and business models.
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| 11. |
- Pagnon, Floriane, et al.
(författare)
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A review of online sources of open-access life cycle assessment data for the construction sector
- 2020
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Ingår i: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. - : IOP Publishing. - 1755-1307 .- 1755-1315. ; 588:4
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The importance of life cycle sustainability in the construction sector is increasing in the light of rising awareness on sustainability issues in society. A means to identify more sustainable options is to assess and compare their sustainability performance. The standards ISO 21931-2 and EN 15643-1 to 5 establish the framework and requirements for sustainability assessment of buildings and civil engineering works. The standards require life cycle assessment (LCA) to be the basis for the environmental part of the sustainability assessment. LCA is a powerful evidence-based method but it requires extensive data. Access to free, easily available and preferably machine-readable LCA data is essential to increase the use of LCA in the construction sector and to make competition fair for all tenderers. This paper aims to compile existing online sources for open-access LCA data of interest for the construction sector. The purpose is to provide a reference document that facilitates the use of LCA in construction. An in-depth search of publications and internet resources was performed, focusing on European sources of Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and process-based LCA datasets. A comprehensive overview of the European data sources available online and relevant to the construction sector is presented. This research work reveals the existence of numerous sources, often difficult and time-consuming to find. The overview in the paper facilitates finding online data needed for LCA, in many cases in a machine-readable format. This can contribute to increasing the use of LCA in the construction sector, which is important when developing buildings or civil engineering works that are more sustainable over their whole life cycle. A greater use and better integration of LCA in the design process contributes to evidence-based life cycle sustainability of our built environment.
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| 12. |
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