Life-cycle Assessment of Resiliency and Sustainability of Buildings

一座典型的建筑必须在使用几十年后，其日常运营所消耗的能量才能超过其最初建造时所体现的能量。因此，如何建造一座可持续发展的建筑与如何在其生命周期内运营同样重要。不幸的是，建筑施工对环境的影响直到最近才被设计顾问考虑，这些设计顾问通过制造所用材料所花费的能量来量化。由于只考虑材料的“摇篮”，而不考虑“从摇篮到坟墓”的环境影响，这些评估未能量化美国建筑实践的真正影响。此外，每座建筑都有特定的脆弱性，其对可持续性的影响以前从未被考虑过，尽管灾后维修对环境造成了重大影响。该项目将制定一项综合生命周期分析，以应对可持续性和复原力之间的复杂关系。这项研究将帮助美国建筑业实现真正具有最佳性能的设计。这样做将推进减少环境影响和更好地管理自然资源的全球任务。此外，该项目采用已建立的建模环境、现实世界案例研究和私营部门合作伙伴关系，将有助于有效地将其转化为美国的设计实践。该项目的教育交叉机会将确保未来的设计专业人员通过利用这项研究的结果来加强我们建筑环境的弹性和可持续性，从而进一步发展这一遗产。该项目将制定一项综合的生命周期评估，在环境影响的多个贡献方面捕捉多种灾害复原力和可持续性之间的依赖关系。计算效率评估将利用(I)模拟驱动的方法，(Ii)基于样本的工具，(Iii)软计算技术，以及(Iv)新的环境影响工具集，这些工具将挖掘公共可用的数据，以量化建筑的运行和体现的能量。通过对实际建筑的敏感性分析，该框架将揭示哪些设计方面真正推动了环境影响，以及考虑到终身暴露是如何影响环境影响的。通过让执业工程师和建筑师直接参与研究工作，进一步促进了这种新发现的理解的转移。

A typical building must be in use for decades before the energy expended in its daily operations surpasses the energy embodied within its initial construction. Thus, how a sustainable building is constructed is as important as how it is operated over its lifetime. Unfortunately, the environmental impact of building construction has only recently been considered by design consultants, quantified by the energy expended in the manufacture of the materials employed. By considering only the materials' 'cradle' and not the 'cradle-to-grave' environmental impact, these evaluations fail to quantify the true impact of US building construction practices. In addition, each building has specific vulnerabilities, whose implications for sustainability has not been previously considered, despite the significant environmental impact of repairs after a disaster. This project will develop an integrated life-cycle analysis that responds to the complex relationship between sustainability and resilience. This research will help the US building industry realize designs with truly optimal performance. Doing so will advance the global mandate to reduce environmental impact and better steward of natural resources. Moreover, this project's adoption of established modeling environments, real world case studies, and private sector partnerships will aid in the effective translation to US design practice. The project's educational crossover opportunities will ensure that future design professionals are well equipped to further this legacy by using the outcomes of this research to enhance resilience and sustainability of our built environment. This project will develop an integrated life-cycle assessment capturing the dependencies between multi-hazard resilience and sustainability, across the multiple contributing dimensions of environmental impact. The computationally efficient assessment will take advantage of (i) simulation-driven approaches, (ii) sample-based tools, (iii) soft-computing techniques, and (iv) new environmental impact toolsets that will mine publically available data to quantify the building's operational and embodied energy. Through sensitivity analyses on actual buildings, the framework will reveal which design aspects truly drive environmental impact and how this is affected by the consideration of lifetime exposure. The transfer of this newfound understanding is further facilitated by engaging practicing engineers and architects directly in the research effort.