Buildings are a major contributor to global warming, not just in terms of their ongoing operation but also in the materials used in their construction. Truss structures — the criss-cross arrays of diagonal struts used throughout modern construction, in everything from antenna towers to support beams for large buildings — are typically made of steel or wood, or a combination of both. Little quantitative research has been done on how to select the right materials to minimise the contribution to global warming of these structures.
The 'embodied carbon' in a construction material includes the fuel used in the material’s production (for mining and smelting steel, for example, or for felling and processing trees) and in transporting the materials to a site. It also includes the equipment used for the construction itself.
Researchers at MIT have performed a detailed analysis and created a set of computational tools to enable architects and engineers...