Achieving a Sustainable Concrete Design and Construction
Abstract
Concrete is one of the key materials in the construction industry. But today, the use
of concrete and its production has become a matter of environmental concern throughout
the world. This statement is true especially for the manufacturing process of cement. One
of the major problems is emission of CO2 gas into the atmosphere during the manufacturing
of cement. Every ton of concrete produced leads to emission of one ton of carbon dioxide
gas. Hence replacement of cement by alternative materials has been investigated by many
researchers.
In the past, fly ash has been the most common replacement. This study, however,
suggests replacing all the major components of concrete to the extent that would satisfy the
standard strength requirements. This paper focuses on the development of a sustainable or
green concrete and proposes a set of tools for a sustainable concrete design and
construction. Many researchers have been trying to replace one component of concrete to
make it more sustainable. Discussion in this paper will not only give a direction to produce
more sustainable concrete but also eco-friendly concrete, thus addressing the two important
issues of economy and environmental friendliness simultaneously.
Defining the idea of sustainability with respect to the concrete and construction
industry and doing a literature search on similar grounds was the first step taken towards
completion of this research. The findings in the literature search made a survey necessary.
This survey was done to have an idea of sustainability from the experts in the construction
and cement industry. The survey was done by sending a questionnaire to concrete experts, engineers, designers and contractors to get their ideas for green concrete and its usage in
the industry. The findings of the literature survey and inferences from the survey results
made the generation of the proposed sets of tools possible.
The concrete and the construction industry can achieve an overall sustainability by
complete utilization of tools proposed in the paper. Strict usage of these tools will not only
ensure environmental sustainability but will also satisfy the ends of economic and social
aspects of sustainability.