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This study aims to propose a sustainable shelter design involving energy savings, less environmental impact, and rapid construction. The structural design of the shelter is based on 3D-printing technology. Sustainability assessments, including life cycle analysis (LCA), life cycle energy assessment (LCEA), and energy justice of the designed shelter, were conducted to prove the sustainable shelter design. The outcomes of this study for several scenarios will not only allow decision-makers to design permanent shelters with maximized utilization of limited resources but also help local communities strengthen their ability to recover with minimal outside assistance post-disaster. Furthermore, residents can utilize the sustainable shelter to maintain critical functions, including business continuity and local business in emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to propose a sustainable shelter design involving energy savings, less environmental impact, and rapid construction. The structural design of the shelter is based on 3D-printing technology. Sustainability assessments, including life cycle analysis (LCA), life cycle energy assessment (LCEA), and energy justice of the designed shelter, were conducted to prove the sustainable shelter design. The outcomes of this study for several scenarios will not only allow decision-makers to design permanent shelters with maximized utilization of limited resources but also help local communities strengthen their ability to recover with minimal outside assistance post-disaster. Furthermore, residents can utilize the sustainable shelter to maintain critical functions, including business continuity and local business in emergencies.

Among the aspects with major impacts on the energy and environmental performance of a building, the thermal insulation of the opaque elements of its envelope stands out. This work assesses the influence of the application of thermal insulation to the opaque elements of the building's envelope on the thermal comfort conditions indoors; moreover, the influence of the thermal insulation on the energy, environmental, and economic costs over the building's complete life cycle is evaluated. For this purpose, the three most commonly used thermal insulating materials (expanded polystyrene—EPS, extruded polystyrene—XPS, and mineral wool—MW), thicknesses between 0 (without insulation) and 40 cm, five climates (hot, warm, moderate, cold, and very cold), and six types of use (apartment, housing, clinic, school, bank branch, and supermarket) were considered. EPS reveals itself to be the most promising thermal insulation material, both in economic and environmental terms, so it was selected for this study. The EPS' optimal thickness depends on the building's type of use, the climate, and the perspective from which the assessment is carried out (energy, environmental, or economic). The results show that the economically optimal thicknesses of thermal insulation are significantly lower than the corresponding ones in environmental terms. Furthermore, the application of thermal insulation to the opaque building's envelope is more beneficial in energy and environmental terms than from an economic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the aspects with major impacts on the energy and environmental performance of a building, the thermal insulation of the opaque elements of its envelope stands out. This work assesses the influence of the application of thermal insulation to the opaque elements of the building’s envelope on the thermal comfort conditions indoors; moreover, the influence of the thermal insulation on the energy, environmental, and economic costs over the building’s complete life cycle is evaluated. For this purpose, the three most commonly used thermal insulating materials (expanded polystyrene—EPS, extruded polystyrene—XPS, and mineral wool—MW), thicknesses between 0 (without insulation) and 40 cm, five climates (hot, warm, moderate, cold, and very cold), and six types of use (apartment, housing, clinic, school, bank branch, and supermarket) were considered. EPS reveals itself to be the most promising thermal insulation material, both in economic and environmental terms, so it was selected for this study. The EPS’ optimal thickness depends on the building’s type of use, the climate, and the perspective from which the assessment is carried out (energy, environmental, or economic). The results show that the economically optimal thicknesses of thermal insulation are significantly lower than the corresponding ones in environmental terms. Furthermore, the application of thermal insulation to the opaque building’s envelope is more beneficial in energy and environmental terms than from an economic perspective.

Recently, a paradigm shift towards environmentally benign manufacturing (EBM) has been evoked in view of the substantially deteriorated environment. To realize more sustainable manufacturing, mitigating the production energy has been recognized as one of the viable strategies. In discrete part manufacturing, different process plans would result in significantly varied production energy. Thus in this investigation, a life cycle energy analysis integrated process planning (LCEA-PP) method is developed to achieve energy-efficient process planning for a certain product design. The life cycle primary energy (LCPE) analysis, considering the energy footprint of a product during virgin material production, product manufacturing and material recycling, is incorporated into the process planning. The case study on an industrial component, produced in two different materials - steel and aluminium, is carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed approach. The investigation shows that applying the near-net shape (NNS) strategy results in an energy mitigation of over 40% compared to the conventional shape (CS) strategy. However, further analysis demonstrates that the CS strategy can be more energy-efficient under certain manufacturing settings. Therefore, the developed approach is necessitated to support industrial manufacturers to adopt energy-efficient process plans and will effectively help them to achieve more sustainable manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This review summarizes and organizes the literature on life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) studies carried out for environmental evaluation of buildings and building related industry and sector (including construction products, construction systems, buildings, and civil engineering constructions). The review shows that most LCA and LCEA are carried out in what is shown as “exemplary buildings”, that is, buildings that have been designed and constructed as low energy buildings, but there are very few studies on “traditional buildings”, that is, buildings such as those mostly found in our cities. Similarly, most studies are carried out in urban areas, while rural areas are not well represented in the literature. Finally, studies are not equally distributed around the world. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The recast Directive on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD) stipulates that by 2020 all new buildings constructed within the European Union after 2020 should reach nearly zero-energy levels. This means that in less than one decade, all new buildings will demonstrate very high energy performance and their reduced or very low energy needs will be significantly covered by renewable energy sources. Such change is affecting both the nature of the built environment as well the actual method of designing and constructing a facility. The economic feasibility to realize a sustainable construction need to have a clear support by adequate analyses connected to the energy consumption and consequently to the new target reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for buildings. Life Cycle Methodologies (LCMs) are currently not considered in details on the EPBD recast, but according also to recent researches, they might be important tasks in a future recast. The paper analyses this challenge providing an overview on the main LCMs to individuate principles, limitations and implications of these approaches to design a Nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A substantial methodology for the energy transition of the building is proposed. • Building applying existing policy is analyzed by building driven-energy payback time. • Current policy cannot fully achieve national goal of 30% energy transition. • 37% more renewable energy should be generated for the substantial energy transition. • The methodology proposed may be applied to policies related to the energy transition. Indicators capable of reflecting the life cycle energy consumption and generation for both the building and renewable energy system are necessary to quantitatively evaluate substantive energy transition of the building since most of research or policies only focused on the operation energy of the building. In this regard, this study applied the energy payback time to the building installed with the renewable energy system, and proposed "building driven-energy payback time (BD-EPBT)." To evaluate the BD-EPBT of the building, a building applied with South Korea's energy transition policy was decided as a case study. With the annual energy generation (19.2 million kWh/yr) based on the current policy, the BD-EPBT was calculated at 53.9 years, which exceeded the building's lifetime (40 years), and the actual energy transition ratio was 22.2%, far less than the national objective (30%). In addition, the annual energy generation required to achieve a 30% energy transition target within the building's lifetime was estimated as 26.4 million kWh/yr, which is more than 137% of the current policy-based annual energy generation. Consequently, the energy transition of the building sector cannot be achieved by the current policies. Therefore, the BD-EPBT should be introduced for the substantial energy transition of the building with the renewable energy systems. This reduces the life cycle energy consumption of buildings and renewable energy systems and helps to effectively install the renewable energy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]