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Symbiotic Circularity in Buildings: An Alternative Path for Valorizing Sheet Metal Waste Stream as Metal Building Facades

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Abstract

Purpose

This study suggests an alternative approach to valorize non-hazardous industrial solid waste flow into construction materials, in particular as metal façade systems by quantifying the creative reuse of consistent and predicated sized scrap metal cutouts (known as Offal) that were generated from the automotive sheet metal stamping and blanking manufacturing processes.

Methods

This study is an expansion on two papers presented at the 10th International Conference on the Environmental and Technical Implications of Construction with Alternative Materials (WASCON). Automotive sheet metal waste stream was transformed into two novel building facade system designs and a “cradle to gate” Life Cycle Assessment was carried out to analyze their environmental impacts and its resultant effect on design, manufacturing and economy.

Results

A Material Design Circularity Factor was introduced to compare both façade systems. Design #1 had greater impacts for all indicators except for operational energy due to the possibility of infiltration. Economically, design #1 had almost double the savings of design #2 at approximately four million dollars annually. The avoided carbon emissions made it evident that the creative reuse of Offal had significant environmental impacts. The two facade systems avoided 7.8 and 5.3 million kg CO2-eq. of greenhouse gas emissions for design #1 and design #2 respectively.

Conclusion

Industrial Symbiosis is a viable concept that can lead to the adoption of circular economy principles to activate reuse over recycling for industrial by-products, which was promoted by creativity, saved manufacturing energy and the reduced costs of production of construction materials. This study proved that reusing automotive metal scrap for building envelopes is environmentally optimal and economically affordable.

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The authors have provided sources of data in the text and references.

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Funding

This study was partially funded by a grant from Texas A&M University and General Motors Company.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Ahmed K. Ali & Patricia N. Kio

  2. Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Jorge Alvarado

  3. School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom

    Yi Wang

Authors
  1. Ahmed K. Ali
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  2. Patricia N. Kio
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  3. Jorge Alvarado
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  4. Yi Wang
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The authors declare that they have all contributed to the production of this article.

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Correspondence to Patricia N. Kio.

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Appendix

Appendix

Number of Offal #8 utilized in Design #1 per m2, N8:

N8 = 2(width) × 3(height) × 4 (Offal overlap)

N8 = 24 pieces

Total weight of Design, W:

\(W = 24 \times 0.86 \left ( \frac{{\text{mass}}}{{\text{kg}}} {\text{of}}\, \#8\right)\)

W = 20.64 kg

Number of Offal #11 utilized in Design #1 per m2, N11:

N11 = 2(width) × 3(height) × 4(# of Offal in one block)

N11 = 24 pieces

The total number of blocks in 1 m2 = 6 pieces

Surface area of one block in Design #2, A2:

A2 = 2(500 × 285) + 2(500 × 140) + 2(285 × 140)

A2 = 285,000 + 140,000 + 79,800

A2 = 504,800 mm2 or 0.5048 m2

Mass of one block, Mb:

Mb = 0.5 × 5.4 = 2.7 kg

Total mass of blocks per m2, MT:

MT = 2.7 × 6 = 16.2 kg

Total surface area of 24 Offal #11 in Design 2, AT:

AT = 24 × 0.22 = 5.28 m2

Total mass of 24 Offal #11 in Design 2, mT:

mT = 5.28 × 5.4 = 28.51 kg

Percentage of Offal utilized in Design #2, P:

\(P = \frac {16.2} {28.51} \times 100 = 57\%\)

Total mass of Offal in Design 2, mT,O:

mT,O = 0.57 × 568,508.5 = 324,050 kg

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Ali, A.K., Kio, P.N., Alvarado, J. et al. Symbiotic Circularity in Buildings: An Alternative Path for Valorizing Sheet Metal Waste Stream as Metal Building Facades. Waste Biomass Valor 11, 7127–7145 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-020-01060-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-020-01060-y

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