A quantitative approach for measuring sustainability in Geotechnical engineering

Abstract

Civil Engineering is the major instrument of anthropocentric development over centuries through ever expanding infrastructure, cities and facilities. Over the last two decades, a growing awareness is noted towards making such growth sustainable as well. Efforts in setting up standards in construction management are mostly directed towards high level construction and material management but geotechnical engineering that can produce the most permanent change of the land use pattern, lacks proportional attention. Literatures available in this field are found to stress more on qualitative aspects of construction management than on developing quantitative efficiency parameters. This paper studies the energy efficiency of two types of pile foundation, drilled shaft and driven reinforced concrete pile, based on available energy-centric methods like exergy and emergy and provides an aid to the practitioner in making a sustainable choice.