The role of concrete compressive strength on the service life and life cycle of a RC structure: Case study

This paper aims to investigate if the concrete compressive strength could be used as an environmental strategy to increase the sustainability potential of a given RC structure. The main goal is to evaluate if increasing design concrete compressive strength would result a better balance between the amounts of steel and concrete, leading to a decrease of environmental impacts and construction costs, followed by an increase in RC structure service life and/or durability. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been used to quantify environmental impacts and embodied energy of three four-pavement commercial office-building designed with C25, C50, and C75 concrete. Service life has been assessed based on design criteria for durability. Results show that for the studied functional unit RC50 presents better results from the environmental and economical point of view. Despite the positive effects regarding durability, the impacts during material production, construction, and demolition proved that, for this case study, the use of RC75 is not economically nor environmentally advantageous when compared to RC50. This study is an evidence that materials choice and structural design parameters are extremely relevant with regard to the environmental impact and service life of reinforced concrete buildings. Results highlight the importance of the inventory data collection on the life cycle analysis.