Selection of Sustainable Supplementary Concrete Materials Using OSM-AHP-TOPSIS Approach

Abstract

Due to resource scarcity, environmental impact, and socioeconomic constraints, sustainable criteria should be given prime importance in the construction industry. The sustainability in concrete can be attained using supplementary materials. The numbers of supplementary concrete materials (SCMs) are available ranging from industries by-products, agro-products, waste product, and newly engineered materials. The selection of the supplementary materials is challenging due to the wide range of environmental, technical, and economic constraints. The paper proposes a decision support framework considering technical, environmental, social, and economic sustainability criteria for ranking of concrete supplementary material. The decision framework includes the optimal scoring method- (OSM-) based shortlisting of supplementary materials, with technical and cost characteristics, and subsequent prioritizing material according to sustainable potentiality order using AHP-TOPSIS. The stability of the ranking of sustainable concrete supplementary materials has been verified using sensitivity analysis. The present study develops decision support framework by employing technical characteristics of the most technically sound material used as concrete material. The technical, environmental, and socioeconomic sustainable performance indicators have considered its selection to obtain much needed sustainability and to boost the eco-friendly environment. From the proposed MCDM framework, it is found that engineered siliceous materials and agriculture-based industrial waste products as SCMs will prove to be most sustainable in the construction industry.