Quantification and Comparison of Carbon Emissions for Flexible Underground Pipelines

The life cycle assessment of underground gravity and pressured pipeline networks are studied to quantitatively calculate the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The life cycle of a pipeline can be classified into four phases that are fabrication, transportation, installation and operation. Three typical flexible underground pipe materials, namely, steel, ductile iron (DI) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have been considered. The most dominant phase of the life cycle is pipe manufacturing and fabrication process, resulting in large amounts of CO2 emissions. The results indicate that PVC provides the best environmental savings compared to steel and DI pipes in terms of CO2 emission and emission mitigation cost. This methodology in estimating life cycle carbon footprint and cost could be used as managerial decision support tool for management of any underground pipeline networks.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author