Abstract Scope |
Buildings consume nearly half of the energy produced globally and are built with highly energy-intensive materials. An urgent global sustainability challenge in developing an innovative, low-carbon construction material is the lack of effort that takes advantage of polymer material technologies, clean energy, high-fidelity multi-physics models and life cycle assessment tools. The specific goals and corresponding methods are: (1) design polymer-based architectural composites that last long, safe and have lower environmental impact compared to conventional building materials. (2)Develop a physics-based model for leveraging the sustainability of new materials in the process of material design and manufacturing, while guaranteeing long-term building safety under environmental aging. (3) Develop a dynamic life cycle analysis that uses a data-driven surrogate model based on the physics-based model to track cumulative life cycle impacts. A case study of the SFMOMA facade is conducted to analyze the performance and sustainability of the new architectural composites. |