This study aims at developing a life cycle assessment (LCA) model to quantify the impact of pavement preservation on energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the past, most of the research focused on the environmental impact of pavements at material and construction stages but ignored the usage stage. The construction stage analyzed in this study contains energy consumption and GHG emissions at material, manufacture, transportation and placement phases. Vehicle operating cost and fuel economy is affected by change in tire rolling resistance during usage stage. This also affects GHG emissions significantly. In this study the Highway Development and Management (HDM-4) model and the Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) were used to analyze fuel consumption and emissions caused by different vehicles on the pavements treated by different preservation treatments. Surface characteristics such as roughness, texture and deflection were taken into account in tire rolling resistance along with general factors such as speed, traffic volume, and road grade. Two pavement sections with different roughness from the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) database were used in the analysis to illustrate the importance of considering usage stage in LCA. The thin overlay was found to have the highest energy consumption and emissions among four preservation treatments during construction stage, but at the same time resulted in the greatest reduction of energy and emission at usage stage. If only construction stage is considered, energy and emissions are ruled by use of amount of material and manufacture process. The reductions of GHG emission at usage stage are much greater than the GHG emission produced at construction stage for all preservation treatments. Excluding the usage stage will omit the fact that construction stage has less impact on pavement LCA than usage stage. Combining both construction and usage stages gave a life-cycle impact of pavement preservation on energy and GHG emission. The results show that there is a significant amount of change in energy consumption and emissions when traffic factors and pavement surface characteristics are considered during usage stage. The study results provide valuable insights in selecting sustainable pavement maintenance strategies from an environmental view point.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Civil and Environmental Engineering
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_5258
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
x, 91 p. : ill.
Note (type = degree)
M.S.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Rashmi Gangaram
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Pavements--Service life
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Greenhouse gases
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.