Lifecycle environmental impact and cost of bridges

In the recent years, the environmental problem such as the global warming has become a serious issue in the whole world. Researchers and practical engineers in civil engineering have to pay enough attention to the environmental impact in addition to the function, safety, cost and aesthetics at all lifecycle stages of a civil infrastructure. In this study, an approach is proposed to predetermine the CO2emissions and costs of bridges from the construction, maintenance and demolition stages based on an available system developed for the bridge type selection. In addition, a case study on the lifecycle environmental impact and cost of two typical types of bridges is carried out to identify the specific effects of each lifecycle stage and others. Finally, this approach is applied for comparing the lifecycle environmental impact as well as the lifecycle cost from both the conventional bridge and the minimum maintenance bridge proposed by the Public Works Research Institute (PWRI).