Time-Cost-Carbon Footprint Tradeoff Analysis for Heavy Construction Operations

With the growing concerns in a global environment, the construction industry has been steadily in the pursuit of sustainable construction in every project stage, including construction operations. As the largest share of... [ view full abstract ]

With the growing concerns in a global environment, the construction industry has been steadily in the pursuit of sustainable construction in every project stage, including construction operations. As the largest share of environmental impacts during the construction is caused by equipment operations, it is necessary for a project owner to understand the correlation between construction time, cost, and carbon footprints in order to select an effective method for controlling the construction project under multiple objectives and constraints. This paper presents a novel paradigm that determines the tradeoff analysis among construction time, cost, and environmental impacts of heavy construction projects by emphasizing the impact of carbon footprints due to the operations of on-site construction equipment. The model is constructed with main capabilities to (1) evaluate the environmental impacts in terms of CO2 emissions during the construction operations and (2) analyze the tradeoff between the construction cost, construction time, and carbon footprints of heavy construction projects. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates the capabilities and application of the model with a case study that represents a simplified version of a highway construction project in Thailand. The result is expected to illustrate the model’s capabilities in generating and visualizing the tradeoff between the construction time, cost, and carbon footprints. This allows project owners to perceive the environmental impact from construction operations and how this impact correlates with the construction cost and duration of the project.