Life Cycle Cost Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment for Road Pavement Materials and Reconstruction Technologies

Abstract

With limited funding and a desire to reduce environmental impact, there is a lot of pressure on road Authorities to develop decision making policy to manage better, build and maintain the road network sustainability. One of the solutions is to use various life cycle analyses. Numerous tools are available for different analyses, but they usually evaluate the construction from one perspective (economical, environmental, or social). Therefore, it was decided to develop a tool, which combines economic (Life Cycle Cost Analysis) and environmental (Life Cycle Assessment) analyses. The given study presents the methodology of the self-developed calculation program, which compare full-depth road constructions. Paper also shows shortcomings when calculation does not include all life cycle processes. In this study, five different road pavement constructions and reconstruction plans were compared. The difference between these pavements was in the layer thickness, recycled asphalt content in asphalt layers and the use of cement or fly ash in the road base layers. The results showed that the full depth reclamation technology in comparison to the full-depth removal and replacement reduce emissions by 60% and costs by 50%.

Keywords

• cold-in-place recycling
• deterministic and probabilistic approach
• fly ash
• life cycle cost analysis
• life cycle impact assessment
• sustainable decision policy