Evaluation of On-Site Fuel Use and Emissions over the Duration of a Commercial Building Project
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 18, Issue 2
Abstract
Commercial construction operations are heavy users of nonroad equipment and diesel engines. These engines are large contributors of carbon dioxide () and other engine-based pollutants and consume large quantities of diesel fuel. This paper presents a case study to identify construction activities that cause the most emissions and fuel use on a construction project and to determine when and where these occur. The paper links emissions and fuel use of construction activities with a project schedule to establish a temporal relationship. RSMeans was used to obtain equipment productivity. Equipment emission rates and fuel use rates were obtained from the EPA’s NONROAD Model. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the effect of changes in scheduling, equipment size, and EPA engine tier on emissions and fuel use. Site construction activities proved to be the heaviest polluters and caused a significant spike in emissions early in the project. Further study is recommended to validate the trends found and to determine the broader effects of this study. However, the methodology presented can be used by construction professionals to estimate fuel use and emissions for various infrastructure building projects.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 18 • Issue 2 • June 2012
Pages: 119 - 129
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 7, 2011
Accepted: Jul 18, 2011
Published online: May 15, 2012
Published in print: Jun 1, 2012
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