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Vadapalli, Venkata Uday Kiran

University of British Columbia

Water and sewer pipe networks are core public infrastructure critical for basic human services. These infrastructures should be sustainable as they consume natural resources and produce emissions into the environment during their life cycle. Water and sewer pipes should be sustainable based on their manufacturing and operation, which is typically evaluated using the established methods such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). Additionally, a standard data management system that can interact with various built environments and collaborate with various databases improves the decision-making process. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be used for this purpose, which has the capability of collaboration and interoperability, which are useful for infrastructure conflict resolution and stakeholder management. This research has proposed a BIM-based life cycle thinking framework for integrated asset management of buried infrastructure using a stochastic approach such as the Markov-chain model. A geo-referenced 3D model was developed in Civil 3D using GIS shapefiles obtained from open-source data of the City of Kelowna municipality. The life cycle impacts of five different pipe materials were evaluated using LCA and LCCA for the developed 3D model that includes four phases: production, installation, maintenance, and disposal. The results of life cycle environmental impacts with all the midpoint impact categories are aggregated into a sustainability score using a weighted sum method and compared with ReCiPe’s single score. Furthermore, integrated maintenance is suggested as a possible alternative to conventional sequential maintenance, and a common trench is considered following the CSA, ASTM, ASCE, and AASHTO guidelines. The comparison of ReCiPe’s single score to the estimated life cycle sustainability impact (LCSI) index gave contrasting results, mainly in the analysis of ductile iron and PVC pipe materials. Based on the LCSI index, the pipe materials are ranked, and the best pipe material is selected. The integrated maintenance approach was found to be cost-effective with a life cycle cost savings of 18%, but at a cost of 19% greater CO2eq emissions. Nonetheless, when the LCSI index is considered, the integrated maintenance approach with a common trench has55% less life cycle environmental impacts than separate trenches. The proposed framework has demonstrated the potential for sustainable buried infrastructure through appropriate selection of pipe materials and integrated infrastructure management. Future research may expand the trench design with more green construction materials, that may further reduce the CO2eq emissions and conventional stochastic optimization techniques may be utilized for performance prediction models.

Text

2021-08-26

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79459

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/