Designing sustainable concrete mixes with potentially alternative binder systems: Multicriteria decision making process

Considering the enormous amount of resources consumption and associated environmental consequences, the selection of sustainable materials is promoted in the construction industry globally. Concrete is one of the mostly used construction materials, but the production of concrete with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) has caused significant environmental burdens. In this study, five mixes of concrete were designed with commonly used binders and potentially alternatives materials to evaluate the mechanical and environmental performances, and their associated costs. The same volumetric replacement ratio of alternative binders, and the same water and aggregates contents were used for effective comparison. The mixes are normal concrete (NC) produced with only OPC, pulverized fly ash (PFA) concrete (PC), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) concrete (SC), volcanic ash-limestone concrete (VLC) and volcanic ash concrete (VC). Based on their corresponding performances of the selected indicators, multicriteria analysis was conducted. The results show that the potential alternative binders can reduce the environmental impacts significantly. For example, both VLC and VC reduces 25% greenhouse gas emissions compared to NC. Concrete produced with potential alternative binder systems, i.e. VLC and VC were also associated with 10–15% and 9–14% lower total impact than the commonly used industrial by-products. Compared to NC, about 9%, 11%, 12% and 15% lower costs were associated with VC, SC, VLC and PC, respectively. The results also indicate that VLC, SC, VC, PC and NC was ranked first to fifth consecutively based on the performance score evaluated from the multicriteria analysis. The results and analysis could help decision-makers select sustainable and cost-effective binders for concrete production.