2021 SP4: embodied carbon - new and enhanced review and reporting options

Tekla Structural Designer
2021
Tekla Structural Designer

2021 SP4: embodied carbon - new and enhanced review and reporting options

Continuing the rapid development of the timely and industry leading Embodied Carbon assessment feature-set in Tekla Structural Designer, this release adds two further Embodied Carbon Overview table grouping options of by Material and by Construction Type & Material, plus separate reporting of totals for mat slabs and other concrete slabs. These enhancements are specifically targeted at facilitating interaction with the Institute of Structural Engineer’s (IStructE) Structural Carbon Tool spreadsheet, enabling much of Tekla Structural Designer’s embodied carbon data to be copied and pasted directly into the IStructE sheet (all Tekla Structural Designer’s Embodied Carbon tables can be exported directly to Excel from the Tabular Data view).

We would note that the IStructE sheet describes an entire scheme by simple grand totals for each material used, hence it is aimed at a reasonably high level summary of scheme data enabling scheme comparisons - i.e. it is aimed primarily at scheme selection rather than detailed optimization during design development of a selected scheme. It thus compliments the powerful Embodied Carbon assessment tools in Tekla Structural Designer, which do enable efficient detailed optimization during this phase of design development.

In addition to these enhancements, a new Chart view has been added for Embodied Carbon by Material and the Embodied Carbon Factors (ECF) for Westok beams have been revised and updated. The full list of enhancements in this area is as follows with further details for each below:

  • [TSD-10324] - Embodied Carbon Overview - Group by Material

  • [TSD-10323] - Embodied Carbon Overview - Group by Construction Type & Material

  • [TSD-10320] - Embodied Carbon Overview - Separated Reporting of Slabs and Mats

  • [TSD-10324] - Embodied Carbon Charts - New “Embodied Carbon by Material” Chart

  • [TSD-10286] - Revised Embodied Carbon Factors (ECFs) for Westok

The new grouping options are listed in the drop-down options list for the “Embodied Carbon Overview” Review Data table, and also have new associated Report items in the Embodied Carbon chapter options, as shown in the pictures below.

Group by Material

An example of this new table option is shown in the picture below for the simple model shown - a steel structure with steel decking composite slabs and composite and non-composite beams. Note the following:

  • There is a single total for each material.

  • Steel appears twice in this example because there are two types of steel with different EPDs (ie they are considered to be different materials) - the same would apply to different concrete or timber grades.

Group by Construction Type & Material

An example of this new table option is shown in the picture below for the same model. Note the following:

  • For each construction type - e.g. Composite slabs - there is now a separate total for each material.

  • Hence the steel total is separated for beams, composite beams, columns, braces, etc

  • This can also be a very useful breakdown of embodied carbon values (though it could become lengthy for larger/ more complex structures).

Separated Reporting of Slabs and Mats

In Embodied Carbon Overview summaries the totals for concrete slabs and mat foundation slabs are now separated. An example of this is shown in the picture below. For the IStructE sheet this allows mats to be assigned to a foundations category which in turn enables some automatic allowance for excavated materials.

New “Embodied Carbon by Material” Chart

A new automated “Embodied Carbon by Material” chart option has been added to the Charts View as shown in the picture below left. Note the following:

  • In this view, materials with the same name but different carbon factors are combined (the chart shown below right is for the same steel structure with steel decking composite slabs and composite and non-composite beams used for examples above).

  • The settings for the new chart include an option “Merge segments contributing less than” with a user-defined % value (default 1.5%) to avoid overlapping text for small segments. This is illustrated below for the example building, in which loose bars (for composite beams), composite beam shear connectors and coating all contribute small proportions < 1.5% to the overall total, and so are combined into the “Other Materials” category with the default 1.5% merge segments value.

Revised Embodied Carbon Factors (ECFs) for Westok

ECFs for Westok sections are revised in this release as follows:

  • The Westok process adds 60 kgCO2e/t to the A1 to A3 stage embodied carbon

    • 60 kgCO2e/t = 0.06 kgCO2e/kg

  • The existing value in the UK Settings was 2.49 kgCO2e/kg

    • 2.45 kgCO2e/kg is the default for rolled sections

    • 0.04 kgCO2e/kg was the previous addition used for the Westok process, based on information previously received from Westok

  • The new value used is 2.45 + 0.06 = 2.51 kgCO2e/kg

Note that the new value is provided in the new settings file for this release, so for an existing installation you will need to re-import the settings for this value to be updated. The method of doing this is detailed in the 2021 Release Notes for the Embodied Carbon feature here (see the “Existing Installations” bullet point in the section on Embodied Carbon Factors).

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