Browsing Reports and Research Briefs by Issue Date
Now showing items 1-20 of 43
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The Effects of Inflation and Its Volatility on the Choice of Construction Alternatives
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2011-08)Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is the standard method for costing long-lived construction projects. The LCCA process determines the full costs of mutually exclusive construction options, finding the project design with ... -
Methods, Impacts, and Opportunities in the Concrete Building Life Cycle
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2011-08)Life cycle assessment (LCA) offers a comprehensive approach to evaluating and improving the environmental impacts of buildings. This research explores and advances three key areas relevant to the field of buildings LCA: ... -
Methods, Impacts, and Opportunities in the Concrete Pavement Life Cycle
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2011-08)Life cycle assessment (LCA) offers a comprehensive approach to evaluate and improve the environmental impacts of pavements. This research explores and advances three key areas relevant to the pavement LCA field: methodology, ... -
Supplementary Information for Comparative Pavement Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Cost Analysis
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2014-07)The MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) is conducting life cycle environmental and cost analyses of pavements under a wide range of contexts. The analyses involve the comparison of new asphalt concrete (AC) and portland ... -
The decision-making process in the design of residential structures
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2015-03)Building codes and standards have been key drivers in shifting industry towards more energy efficiency, but it is important to take a more holistic approach toward GHG mitigation and evaluate the impact of design decisions ... -
The impact of surface albedo on climate and building energy consumption: review and comparative analysis
(Transportation Review Board, 2015-08)This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the existing research on the climate impacts of albedo. Different analytical approaches and modeling works are synthesized and discussed. -
Life Cycle Assessment for Residential Buildings: A Literature Review and Gap Analysis (Revised)
(2016-10-12)What is the environmental impact of a house throughout its lifetime? This report summarizes recent research on life cycle assessment of residential buildings in order to identify gaps in understanding as well as best ... -
Critical Issues When Comparing Whole Building & Building Product Environmental Performance
(2016-10-17)Guides, standards, product category rules, and environmental product declarations have emerged to evaluate environmental impacts within the buildings sector. These efforts have certainly moved the field forward, but as of ... -
Towards Understanding Cement Paste Creep: Implications from Glass Studies
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, 2017-01-04)This research brief presents foundational work toward understanding the mechanics of the complex process of creep by evaluating the phenomena occurring at the nano-scale in metallic glass, a model material, to better ... -
Research Brief: Examining Freeze-Thaw Damage at the Microscopic Scale
(2017-01-12)Researchers conducted both theoretical and numerical studies on the microscopic phenomena in cement paste pores to reveal the important roles that ions and electrolytes play in freeze-thaw damage. -
Research Brief: A break-even hazard mitigation metric
(2017-01-12)CSHub researchers developed the Break Even Mitigation Percent (BEMP) to answer the question: “How much should be invested in mitigation for a particular building?” -
Research Brief: Minimizing Thermal Cracks in Concrete Pavements
(2017-01-12)This brief examines the risk of fracture of concrete pavements due to thermal cycles. CSHub researchers model the risk of fracture due to temperature changes and propose a method for estimating the risk of thermal cracking ... -
Research Brief: Quantifying the impact of pavement reflectivity on radiative forcing and building energy demand in neighborhoods
(2017-03-13)Albedo is the measure of the fraction of solar energy reflected by the Earth’s surface. High-albedo surfaces, which are lighter in color, absorb less sunlight energy and reflect more shortwave radiation. The change in ... -
Air leakage has strong influence on building life cycle impacts
(2017-05-02)Making informed decisions at the earliest stages of the design process can lead to improved building performance. There are many aspects of a building’s design that can influence overall energy consumption. This research ... -
How to Improve Pavement Life Cycle Cost Analysis: A Case Study of Minnesota
(2017-06-26)Life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) frameworks are used by some transportation agencies for economic assessment, but there have been challenges implementing the approach, particularly in the characterization of initial and ... -
Research Brief: Evolving the C-S-H Packing Density at the Microscale
(2017-10-02)Cement paste is a complex multiphase material, roughly 50 percent of which, by volume, is composed of calcium-silicate-hydrates (C-S-H). The C-S-H phase, which lends the material its rigidity, appears to be a dispersion ... -
Research Brief: Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Pavement Albedo
(2018-01)Albedo is the measure of how much solar energy is reflected by the Earth’s surface. Lighter color, or high-albedo, surfaces absorb less sunlight energy and reflect more shortwave radiation. Increasing pavement albedo has ... -
Research Brief: Prioritizing Resilient Retrofits
(2018-02)2017 was one of the most devastating U.S. hurricane seasons ever recorded. State Departments of Public Safety across the country list tens of thousands of destroyed homes and hundreds of thousands more damaged. Although ... -
Research Brief: Implications of energy code evolution on energy performance of multi-family residential buildings in the US
(2018-03)The International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), which is created by the International Code Council (ICC), standardizes expectations for the design and construction of buildings with regards to energy use and conservation ... -
Research Brief: Concrete building design optimization for reduced life cycle costs and environmental impacts
(2018-04)Decisions made at early stages of the building design process can have a large influence on the environmental performance and financial costs of a building. One of the best ways to discover preferable designs is to analyze ...