Brandon S. Byers

Life Cycle Assessments using SimaPro

For both my Life Cycle Assessment class (CEE 226) and Materials for Sustainable Built Environments class (CEE 223) I have worked to developed an LCA for our group projects. For CEE 226 we worked directly with the sustainability team at San Francisco International Airport to develop a report for them comparing the life cycle costs and life cycle impact of their current emergency generator system, an alternative system that uses biofuel, and a third alternative system that replaces their generators with a battery pack system.

For CEE 223 my team developed mass timber and hybrid timber-steel structural alternatives for the roof of a Palo Alto Mosque that discussed the constructability, life cycle environmental impacts, and total costs over time. Using SimaPro I was able to determine that the CLT roof alternative depleted more materials and had a slightly worse net impact on human health from production to installation stages.