Modeling Concrete With Available EPDs

How to model Concrete resources with available material data

This article relates to modeling concrete in building LCA projects.

You can use the Grouping (Business feature) or the Private Construction (Expert feature) to model your own concrete mixes in which you are able to account for the material elements of the mix. You are not able to include production energy requirements as of today. 

You'll need to find the right materials which will represent the elements of your concrete mix. Elements present in a Ready-Mix Concrete are as follows:

• Cement (E.g. Portland Cement)
• Fine Aggregates (E.g. Sand)
• Coarse Aggregates (E.g. Aggregates)
• Water
• Admixtures 
• Production electricity (not possible at the moment)

Excluding the production electricity of ready-mix concrete is not a big issue, as this generally constitutes to only around 1-2% of the total emissions of ready-mix concrete. 

You can access the material category for 'Cement, binders and additives' which will provide you will the majority of the required elements.

You can access the material category for 'Earth, masses and stones' which will provide you with the fine and coarse aggregate options. 

We recommend to model your mix for 1 cubic meter of Concrete so you are easily able to calculate your cement mix for larger quantities as well. An example of 1 cubic meter of cement is shown below:

(materials and quantities can be different)

Ready-mix concrete elements	Weight in KG of materials
Portland Cement	210 kg
Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag	90 kg
Tap water	180 kg / 0.18 m3
Crushed Gravel (Coarse Aggregate)	880 kg
Sand (Fine Aggregate)	1040 kg

Example how this would look like in One Click LCA below: