DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

hormigón estructural, sostenibilidad, evaluación, estimaciones, normativa, software, concrete structures, sustainability, assessment, estimating, standards and codes, software.

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

The Spanish Structural Concrete Code (EHE, in Spanish) includes, in its Appendix 13, a model for assessing structural sustainability. This model is based in the MIVES method (Integrated Value-based Model for Sustainability Assessment,
in Spanish), and includes the evaluation of different environmental, social and economic indicators, related to the structure design and construction.
According to the EHE, when a sustainable structure is designed, it is necessary to estimate the EHE sustainability index at least two times: after finishing the design and when the construction has been completed. On the other hand, performing additional estimations in other moments of the project life-cycle is inevitable. During the design stages this will serve to make decisions in order to obtain a design matching the sustainability objective established by the client. The subsequent assessments performed during the procurement and construction stages will serve for monitoring and controlling purposes; this will allow increasing the likelihood of achieving the referred to objective. Despite the corresponding calculations are not excessively complex, they are long and a little tedious. So it is necessary to have a tool to save time and streamline the estimating process, facilitating and speeding up the decision-making process. This article presents a free of charge computer tool for this purpose, in order to encourage the design of sustainable structures. On the other hand, the paper also summarizes the foundations of the EHE sustainability assessment model, to clarify the method and the calculations to be performed.