01154190

Component

The Transportation Research Board published Report 290 (2008) entitled “Potential Impacts of Climate Change on US Transportation”. This report says “there is a need for making changes in [design] standards that focuses first on long-lived facilities, such as bridges.” The report indicates that the solution for dealing with climate change will be a combination of two strategies: adaptation and mitigation. The Greenbridges standard proposed herein is a part of the mitigation strategy for reducing greenhouse gasses that will be deployed across the economy and the world. Greenbridges has a total of six prerequisites and thirty-nine credits grouped into seven categories. The categories are: materials & resources, alternative transportation, project delivery process, construction activity, maintenance & access, environment & water, and energy. There is no existing standard to define a green bridge. Green standards have been successfully implemented in other industries and can be used as a guide for developing the green standard for bridges. The goals of green design include reducing life cycle costs, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution emissions, waste, and the use of non-renewable resources to sustainable levels. Until a standard is available, two primary strategies for reducing environmental impacts of bridge projects are to design for minimum life cycle costs and to use recycled materials to the maximum economical extent. Bridge projects currently use many recycled and by-product materials, but there are significant opportunities to specify more recycled materials while simultaneously reducing costs and increasing performance. Materials discussed herein include steel, concrete, aggregate, wearing surfaces, and pier protection. Examples from successful bridge projects are given for each recycled material.

01147878

10-0778

English

22p

2010

Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting

DVD

Appendices; References

Bridges; Building materials; Construction; Construction and maintenance; Environmental design; Environmental engineering; Environmental impact analysis; Life cycle costing

Bridges and other structures; Environment; Highways

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2010 Paper #10-0778

TRIS, TRB

Jan 25 2010 10:22AM