Abstract

Initial studies on the embodied carbon emissions of arched floors show in an incipient way the potential of their use to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from building structures. The funicular shape of arched floors allows for reducing the structural material quantity and the possibility to use materials with a low embodied carbon coefficient. These characteristics could be also vital for improving the environmental performance of floor structures in areas such as material depletion, waste or toxicity. While there are indications of the benefits of using arched floors to improve the environmental performance of floor structures, comprehensive studies to support these assumptions are still lacking. This dissertation presents an investigation of the potential environmental benefits of the use of arched floors. The investigation focuses on identifying variables in the design of arched floors that could be key to achieving floor structures with higher environmental performance. Within these design variables, attention is paid to the possibility of reducing the structural mass of these floors and being able to use alternative and more ecological materials to those currently used. An environmental performance assessment framework based on the ”Environment Responsible Product Assessment” (ERPA) method is proposed for the practical evaluation of floor-structure designs. For a more comprehensive understanding of the environmental impact of arched floors, impacts are calculated based on qualitative indicators and quantitative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results. On the one hand, qualitative indicators aim to represent aspects that are difficult to quantify in the assessment process. On the other hand, quantitative indicators aim to minimise the uncertainties related to empirical estimates. A scoring scheme is used to capture both LCA results and qualitative indicators in a standard metric. The research considers three key objectives to be met in order to identify possible environmental benefits in the use of arched floors. The first objective is to address the design space of floor structures. This is achieved by developing a taxonomy to describe floor systems in terms of their structural characteristics. The second objective is to compare typologies of floor structures in terms of environmental impact. Various floor systems are classified based on the proposed taxonomy and compared with each other in terms of embodied GHG emissions and toxicity. The third objective is to identify design aspects of arched floors that are beneficial to the environment. The proposed environmental performance assessment framework is used to assess different design strategies for arched floors, considering the whole life-cycle of floor structures.