Research on whole life cycle carbon emission model of typical buildings

Based on the theory of life cycle assessment(LCA),this article analyzes the influence factors on carbon emissions from residential buildings.In the article,the life cycle of residential buildings has been divided into five stages:building materials production period,construction period,operation and maintenance period,demolition period,and solid waste recycle and disposal period.Based on this definition,the authors provide a theoretical model to calculate carbon emissions of residential building life cycle.In particular,the factor of human activities was introduced in the calculation of carbon emissions from the buildings.Furthermore,the authors put forward a model for calculation with the unit of carbon emissions for per-capita living space.

Evaluation of the fishbone model in simulating the seismic response of multistory reinforced concrete moment-resisting frames

The fishbone model is a simplified numerical model for moment-resisting frames that is capable of modelling the effects of column-beam strength and stiffness ratios. The applicability of the fishbone model in simulating the seismic responses of reinforced concrete moment-resisting frames of different sets of column-beam strength and stiffness ratios are evaluated through nonlinear static, dynamic and incremental dynamic analysis on six prototype buildings of 4-, 8-and 12-stories. The results show that the fishbone model is practically accurate enough for reinforced concrete frames, although the assumption of equal joint rotation does not hold in all cases. In addition to the ground motion characteristics and the number of stories in the structures, the accuracy of the model also varies with the column-beam stiffness and strength ratios. The model performs better for strong column-weak beam frames, in which the lateral drift patterns are better controlled by the continuous stiffness provided by the strong columns. When the inelastic deformation is large, the accuracy of the model may be subjected to large record-to-record variability. This is especially the case for frames of weak columns.

Carbon emission analysis of a residential building in China through life cycle assessment

In this paper, a quantitative life cycle model for carbon emission accounting was developed based on the life cycle assessment （LCA） theory. A residential building in Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city （Tianjin, China） was selected as a sample, which had been constructed according to the concept of green environmental protection and sustainable development. In the scenario of this research, material production, construction, use and maintenance, and demolition phases were assessed by building carbon emission models. Results show that use and maintenance phase and material production phase are the most significant contributors to the life cycle carbon emissions of a building. We also analyzed some factor influences in LCA, including the thickness of the insulating layer and the length of building service life. The analysis suggest that thicker insulating layer does not necessarily produce less carbon emissions in the light of LCA, and if service life of a building increases, its carbon emissions during the whole life cycle will rise as well but its unit carbon emission will decrease inversely. Some advices on controlling carbon emissions from buildings are also provided.