The Life Cycle Assessment And Comparison Of Highway Embankments Of Two Different Materials

Expanded polystyene (EPS) foam embankment and normal material embankment are compared by life cycle assessment, from resources depletion, global warming, photochemical ozone creation, acid, nutrient enrichment, resource depletion, which are six main influences of embankement construction, and material prodution, material transportation, embankment construction and enengy prodution, which are four stages of the embakment construction life cycle.The equivalent factors of the land resource and the oil resource are calculated by resource depletion potential (RDP).The results of LCA shows that, the environmental impact indexes of normal material embankment and EPS embankment are 7.53×10-8a and 5.62×10-8a respectively, comparing to normal material embankment, EPS embankment is more friendly to environment.And, the method, to make the total emvironmental impacet of the two embankments equalize, is found out, and the threshold of land depletion potential is calculated.