Assessment of the Environmental Impacts of Bridge Designs Involving UHPFRC

Abstract

Ultra-High-Performance Fibre-Reinforced Cementitious Composite (UHPFRC) has been developed to design lightweight structures and enhance existing designs. As the environmental footprint of the construction industry must be significantly reduced, the potential to lower environmental impacts of structures using UHPFRC needs to be explored. While the greenhouse gas emissions of a volume of UHPFRC are higher than that of the same volume of concrete, UHPFRC enables the reduction in the amount of material required in structural designs and improves the durability of structures. The environmental impacts of structural designs must thus be compared on the cradle-to-grave use cycle of the design at a project scale. In this study, a methodology is proposed to evaluate the ecological burdens of several bridge designs involving various structural elements in UHPFRC. The method proposes an analysis over three time horizons: first, the construction phase, then including the scheduled maintenance, and finally, adding the elimination. A case study of a short-span bridge in Switzerland is used to assess three alternatives of bridge designs: a conventional reinforced-concrete structure, a composite timber–UHPFRC bridge, and a full-UHPFRC solution. The results show that timber–UHPFRC structures can significantly reduce the environmental impacts of bridge designs, showing promising results in terms of sustainable development. The use of the methodology supports bridge owners in assessing the environmental impacts of structural designs.