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Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Mixtures with WMR

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Valorisation of Waste and Secondary Materials for Roads

Part of the book series: RILEM State-of-the-Art Reports ((RILEM State Art Reports,volume 38))

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Abstract

This study aimed at providing pavement specialists with international average values of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and energy consumption related to the manufacturing of asphalt mixtures (cradle-to-gate), with and without waste and secondary materials for roads (WMRs). In order to achieve this goal, TG leaders first referred to current standards to define a methodology for obtaining benchmark values according to ISO 21678:2020. Then, a data collection tool was designed and provided to a group of international partners to build a life cycle inventory for asphalt mixtures including data from materials up to plant manufacturing (A1–A3). Partners were asked to provide information for any type of available mixtures with and without WMRs. A total of 16 case studies were collected and subsequently energy consumption values were recorded, and several cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment exercises were performed to obtain GHG emissions values. This set of results was used to develop benchmark values for reference (conventional) asphalt mixtures, namely asphalt concretes (ACs) and stone matrix asphalts (SMAs). Finally, in order to assess how environmentally-friendly it is to incorporate WMRs into asphalt mixtures, the benchmark values of the reference asphalt concrete and stone matrix asphalt mixtures were compared with the GHG and energy consumptions of asphalt mixtures manufactured with selected WMRs. As a result: (1) SMA seems to have higher impact than ACs, (2) Asphalt mixtures engineered with selected WMRs seem to be always a more environmentally friendly option when compared to benchmark values of reference SMA. However, this does not always hold true when the comparison is made with conventional ACs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze – Edificio 8, 90127, Palermo, Italy

    Davide Lo Presti & Gabriella Buttitta

  2. LABIC-UGR. Laboratorio de Ingeniería de la Construcción Universidad de Granada ETS Caminos, Canales y Puertos Severo Ochoa S/N Campus de Fuentenueva, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Ana Jiménez del Barco Carrión

  3. Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Oude Waalsdorperweg 63, 2597 AK, Den Haag, The Netherlands

    Elizabeth Keijzer

  4. Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 129, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Zhengyin Piao & Lily D. Poulikakos

  5. Road Research Institute of Vilnius TECH (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University), Saulėtekio Al. 11, 10223, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Rita Kleizienė

  6. Energy and Materials in Infrastructure and Buildings (EMIB), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Ben Moins & David Hernando

  7. Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (ICEA), University of Padova, Via Marzolo, 9-35131, Padova, Italy

    Emiliano Pasquini

  8. Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Rakentajanaukio, 4-02150, Espoo, Finland

    Augusto Cannone Falchetto & Di Wang

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  1. Davide Lo Presti
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  2. Ana Jiménez del Barco Carrión
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  3. Gabriella Buttitta
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  4. Elizabeth Keijzer
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  6. Rita Kleizienė
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  7. Ben Moins
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  8. David Hernando
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  9. Emiliano Pasquini
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  10. Lily D. Poulikakos
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  11. Augusto Cannone Falchetto
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  12. Di Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Davide Lo Presti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Augusto Cannone Falchetto

  2. 308 - Concrete & Asphalt, EMPA, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Lily Poulikakos

  3. DICEA, University of Padua, Padova, Italy

    Emiliano Pasquini

  4. Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Di Wang

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Lo Presti, D. et al. (2023). Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Mixtures with WMR. In: Cannone Falchetto, A., Poulikakos, L., Pasquini, E., Wang, D. (eds) Valorisation of Waste and Secondary Materials for Roads. RILEM State-of-the-Art Reports, vol 38. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33173-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33173-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33172-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33173-2

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