Apply for a virtual course in building technology: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Materials and Structures
With a growing demand for environment and climate, the construction sector is aiming to find
new ways for designing, producing, optimizing and/or reusing low-carbon solutions for
sustainable materials and structures. Within this context, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods have become a promising way to quantify possible solutions for materials and structures applications that lead to CO2 reductions. LCA methods are based on inventory databases that define the environmental impact of defined cradle to cradle or cradle to gate situations.
The course is a 3-day block course from 5 to 7 June 2024 (5 ECTS). The registration deadline is 2 June 2024.
Application link and more details can be found
Before applying, please check with the planning officer of coordinator of your own study programme that the credits from the course can be transferred to your own Aalto study plan.
More information about Unite! and the alliance's educational offerings can be found here.
What to expect from the course:
The course addresses three main topics, starting with 1) LCA-basics in Matlab, 2) LCA-inventory databases implementation in Matlab and spreadsheet calculator, and 3) LCA-BIM (Building Information Modeling) and LCA implementation in open-source software. The LCA Matlab topic is introducing Matlab and shows how to code LCA cases, followed by demos and exercises. The LCA-inventory databases topic is addressing various databases that can be applied for a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and how they can be implemented in Matlab and spreadsheet. A demonstration followed by exercise will be provided as well. The last topic is on LCA-BIM and Open-LCA where first the relation between BIM and LCA will be presented followed by the way how Open source LCA can be employed for applications. This theme also closes with a demonstration session and exercises with groupwork on a topic related to actual practical applications.
After successful completion of the module, the students can:
• Schematize a building or construction and apply the system boundaries.
• Build a LCA in Matlab and calculate the environmental impact.
• Use various inventory databases and how to use them for applications.
• Use LCA for BIM and practical applications.
• Employ Open source LCA software for different applications
Requirements for participation:
Recommended courses to be completed before participation (or similar courses): "Construction Materials (BI)", "Building Construction and Building Physics"
Questions? Find the contact details and further course details
Questions about Unite? Contact unitevirtualincoming@aalto.fi
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