Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

 

Evaluating Tradeoffs Between Hazard-Resistance and Environmental Impacts: a Multi-Criteria Approach to Building Design and Life Cycle Performance Public Deposited

https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/r781wg270
Abstract
  • Principles of green building design and hazard-resistant design are often employed individually to enhance building performance, but for different objectives and evaluated with different units of measurement. At a fundamental level, however, hazard resistant design and green building design are motivated by shared principles and evaluated with shared assessment tools, although often with outcomes presented in different units of measurement. The goal of this research is to quantify the influence of hazard resistant design principles on green building performance—namely, life cycle environmental impact—and, conversely, to quantify the influence of green building design principles on hazard resilience, focused here on seismic performance.

    This dissertation represents a compilation of three studies that combine to evaluate and quantify how a) structural design principles for hazard resistance influence life cycle environmental impacts of a building and b) principles of green building design influence building hazard-resistance. Each chapter examines the life cycle environmental impacts and seismic performance of a series of code-conforming, reinforced concrete office buildings in southern Los Angeles, varied with respect to non-structural green building features, structural frame and member configurations, and structural concrete properties. When taken together, the results of each study provide insight into the tradeoffs and synergies between life cycle hazard performance and environmental impact. The results also support broader goals for the intersection of hazard-resistant and green design, not limited in application to buildings (nor only reinforced concrete as a structural material). A key methodological contribution of this dissertation is development of an innovative approach that transforms building component damage fragilities into specific material volumes for post-hazard component restoration and then translates these material quantities into distributions of post-hazard environmental impacts. Finally, this dissertation applies the concepts of multi-objective analysis and life cycle assessment to evaluate the multi-metric, systems-based nature of building design, construction, operation, and performance in the 21st century.

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  • 2017
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  • 2020-02-13
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