Economic and Environmental Assessment of New Generation Concretes

Abstract

Abstract The identification of an anthropogenic environmental degradation has led to a transformation of social and economic trends in the world, which has resulted in the idea of sustainable development, which, in recent years, has become a key point of scientific consideration and a challenge for economic operators. Previously, the dominant aspects of the design of buildings and constructions were functional and structural issues. Nevertheless, based on sustainable development, a new approach to design has emerged, taking into account all the requirements for sustainable construction in one design process, called ILCD - integrated life-cycle design. The new concept combines the design of a building at the level of material, structural element and the whole structure, while, at the same time, assessing design solutions in terms of meeting technical requirements and, among others, economic and environmental efficiency. The development of concrete technology involving a new generation concrete with significantly improved properties, not only in terms of strength and durability but also in terms of rheology, has made it necessary to evaluate these materials from an economic and environmental point of view. The article presents such an assessment of new generation concretes. In this way, the idea of integrated design was presented in practice. The paper also indicates the sources of data and the tools that can be used for the inventory of the indicators for individual processes. The conducted analyses were also an attempt to estimate selected issues of the integrated design of new generation concrete technology against the background of normal concrete technology.