Engineering Research Project Planning 2022

ENGINEERING RESEARCH PROJECT PLANNING
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Introduction
Asphalt pavement has remained to be a single fundamental component within the construction
industry besides providing excellent basic utility to the human race. Nevertheless, due to
economic as well as social development, a large volume of non-exhaust particulate emission
release to the atmosphere resulting in climate change all over the world. To effectively lower
such emissions, there has to be in place a strategy for the involved agencies as well as
government to measure besides assessing the released emissions (Akbarian et al., 2019). Life
cycle assessment, LCA, tends to be one of the most commonly used tools in the quantification
and assessment of the environmental effects of the maintenance and construction of pavement.
Life cycle assessment provides an elaborate and includes technique for assessment of the total
environmental effect of product that aids in ensuring the technique does not lead to unplanned
effects with regard to net increase or decrease in the effect.
In as much as International Organization for Standardization has come up with an avalanche of
standards for carrying out Life cycle assessment on product as demonstrated in ISO 14040,
conducting a life cycle assessment on a pavement could be more sophisticated in comparison
with the general consumer products (Anastasiou, Liapis and Papayianni, 2015). The life cycle for
the case of a pavement is inclusive of material production, use, construction, maintenance as well
as end of life phases. The life cycle of a general pavement is as demonstrated in the figure below.
Pavement life cycle assessment tends to be a cradle to grave tool that is used for the assessment
as well as quantification of the environmental effects from maintenance as well as construction
of pavement. Cradle to grave begins from acquisition of raw materials from the natural
environment to production of a product as well as finishing through sending back to nature the
product. Pavement life cycle assessment is able to quantify the cumulative environmental effects

that take place from all the various phases in the life cycle of the pavement. Incomplete source of
data being included for instance acquisition of raw materials, delivery of material as well as
extreme disposal of product tend to hinder the process. Hence in a bid to include the effects
during the pavement life cycle, pavement life cycle assessment furnish presents a holistic
perception of the environment parts of the product related.
Aims/Objectives
The principal objective of the study is to carry out life cycle assessment and cost analysis of
production of asphalt in the capacity of a pavement material that is used in the constriction of
highway
Figure 1: Components & phases of pavement life cycles
The figure above is a demonstration of the phases as well as components of the pavement life
cycles. Construction and maintenance of pavement is made up of five major phases among them
raw materials and production, construction, maintenance, usage and end of life. Each phase of
the pavement maintenance and construction is composed of various components with each

component illustrating the correlation between the surrounding and pavement. Such components
demonstrate the environmental effects of pavement directly. In as much as the indirect processes
are not shown the supporting processes for such processes will be included (Babashamsi et al.,
2016).
Literature Review
Pavement life cycle assessment began being used in the quantification and assessment of the
environmental effects of construction and maintenance of highways in the 1990s even though
previous researches established the application of life cycle assessment in the maintenance and
construction of pavement assessment tends to be a significantly new idea. In most cases, the
model of pavement life cycle assessment is composed of material, usage, construction,
maintenance as well as end of life even though most of the works involving construction and
maintenance of pavement does not include the main segments.
Going by Yu et al. (2012) two major components in pavement life cycle assessment models
being usage alongside traffic congestion output from maintenance and construction of pavement
are often assumed that result from large competition (Butt, Toller and Birgisson, 2015). It was
stated by Huang et al. (2009) that the delay of traffic during the maintenance and construction of
pavement may result in relatively higher consumptions of fuel as well as emisions of particulate
matter released into the atmosphere. The gaps in usage and traffic congestion phases as studied
by Zhang et al. (2010) of the life cycle of pavement require significant improvement. Such gaps
are often data sources outdate, not compete usage phase as well as end of life phase that are just
taken as end point pavement life cycle even though most high mix asphalt tends to be recycled
and old Portland cement is broken down and used again as base course aggregates