Embodied energy in pre-use: comparison between steel deck- and massive slabs

Abstract Industrialisation has become a powerful economic solution: it allows the reduction of material consumption, human resources, energy, time and financial resources to varying extents. Hence, new technologies arise, such as the steel deck slab system, and also the need of new, detailed studies analysing energy consumption and environmental impact, as well comparisons with traditional systems. The goal of this study is to compare two types of slab systems (concrete- and steel deck systems) with regards to their incorporated energy in the pre-use phase, which includes raw material extraction, components production, transportation to the site and execution. The methodology applied had already been used in other studies that broke down the systems, allowing the calculation of mass and energy at lower levels of the most important components. The incorporated energy rates used were also from earlier studies. This study concluded that the systems differ in energy by 13%, and showed that the incorporated energy in steel deck slab systems is higher than that of massive slabs due to the steel component, which presents high levels of energy extraction and production.