COMPARING ENERGY USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EMISSIONS OF WELDED VS.

BOLTED JOINTS IN CONSTRUCTIONS

Marjan Suban Borut Bundara Robert Cvelbar Key words:

Institute of metal constructions, Mencingerjeva 7, Ljubljana, Slovenia Institute of metal constructions, Mencingerjeva 7, Ljubljana, Slovenia Institute of metal constructions, Mencingerjeva 7, Ljubljana, Slovenia environmental impact, LCA, construction joints

Abstract: In order to create environmental conscious buildings, the environmental impacts of entire service life must be known. The paper presents the results obtained from research work on two types of joint solutions namely welded and bolted connections. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is technique to assess environmental aspects associated with a product or process by identifying energy, materials and emissions over its life cycle. Since welded and bolted joints are two options to connect construction elements, we compared the potential environmental effects of both types of joints by conducting LCA analysis. The energy use and environmental emissions are comparable if the total impacts from materials manufacturing, construction, use, maintenance and demolition are considered. Two designs of joints were compared, simple and more complicated beam-to-column joint, both made of steel. Before comparing environmental impacts, detail analysis of joints strength were made. At the end, we can say that energy use and environmental emissions can be reduced through a careful selection of type of joints used in steel constructions.

1. INTRODUCTION Traditionally, constructions and products were designed and developed without major consideration about their impact on the environment. Over the past 25 years, issues regarding environment have gained greater public interest and recognition. Particular emphasis is placed on the increasing problems of greenhouse gases (GHG) with threat of global warming and increasing consumption of chemicals that reduce the ozone layer. Care for environment requires the development and application of methods to identify and reduce the adverse environmental effects of human services and activities. There is now a growing awareness of need to radically decrease waste streams from production and also consumption processes. The use of joints is inherent in every structural steel building, whether it is of one story or one hundred stories. Therefore, the various type of connection (column-to-column, beam-to-column, beam-to-beam), due to its importance to all constructions, are significant both structurally economically and environmentally. Because of the repetitive nature of connections, even minor material or production improvement in one connection are compounded and expanded throughout the entire building. It is important, then, for a design engineer to understand the behavior of the connection, not only from the point of view of the connection as a structural element, but also from the environmental point of view. In the designing process, engineer has several different options to design the joint in constructions regarding manufacturing processes. The configuration of joint depends upon the type of connecting elements, nature and magnitude of the forces (and moments), available equipment, fabrication and erection considerations, cost, etc. Fabrication processes used are welding (and soldering), bolting, riveting and adhesive bonding. When compared with other methods of connection fabrication, such as riveting and bolting, welded structures tend to be stronger, regarding weight are lighter and inexpensive to produce. Various technologies of welding allow us flexibility in the design of connection components to be welded. On the other hand, joining processes represents an interesting problem in environmentally friendly manufacturing. In a case of welding, soldering, adhesive bonding and also riveting components are joined to well and they cannot be easily disassembled for repair or reuse. Hence the decision to join two components in permanent connection must be approached with care. According to the industry research, the percentage of welded joints done on typical construction site range from 8 to 10%, while roughly 15% of welded connections are produced at the fabrication shop [1]. Mechanical joining (bolting and riveting) uses physical means to hold components together (e.g. rivets and bolts). It usually requires that surfaces must be carefully machined to obtained satisfactory fits. It may be noted, that, unlike other joining methods, operations of mechanical joining can often be reversed, which offer some environmental advantages in terms of product recycling or remanufacturing. Adhesive bonding is a promising fabrication technology which may also be used, but adhesive main weakness is degradation in the application environment. Joining processes which include welding and soldering are producers of variety of wastes and can consume considerable amounts of energy. Following emissions are produced during welding: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, dusts and metallic fumes. The airborne particulate matter may include lead, cadmium, cobalt, copper, manganese, silica and fluoride compounds. Additional wastes that are generated include used filler rods and electrodes, heat and electromagnetic radiation. As stated in literature, reducing the amount of welds where is possible, will reduce energy consumption and process wastes of fabrication operations [2]. But on the other hand, manufacturing of the fasteners and its operations are also largely associated with the energy consumption and related environmental effects. Also use of material in connections is larger, because there is a need from structural point of view to use some additional steel components e.g. angles, flanges. During this research some clarification of these statements will be made using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a joint components and its fabrication. LCA could be also used to assist fabricators to identify and assess opportunities to realize cost savings by making better design and more environmentally friendly constructions.

2. CONCEPT OF LCA The concept of LCA emerged in the 1970s as a systematic way of examining the environmental impact of product by analyzing the entire life cycle of a product from raw materials extraction and acquisition through the processing and manufacturing, transportation, distribution, use, repair and finally product disposal [3]. This is also presented in schematic way in Figure 1. LCA became popular in the early nineties. Initially many thought that LCA would be a very good tool to support environmental claims. Over the years, it has become clear that this is not the best application for LCA although it is clearly important to communicate LCA results in a careful and well-balanced way.

Figure 1:

LCA system boundaries [4]

A system or life cycle can begin with extracting raw materials from the ground and generating energy. Materials and energy are then part of all further processes show in Figure 1. A life cycle approach means that we have a tool to recognize how different choices influence what happens at each of these points so we can balance trade-offs and positively impact the environment, economy and society. This kind of approach identifies opportunities and risks of a product or technology (in our case welding vs. bolting), all the way from raw materials to disposal. The energy analysis includes four stages of a life cycle: material production phase, manufacturing phase, use phase, and end-of-life phase. Since net energy analysis was done in the seventies, quit a lot effort has been made to construct framework of the LCA methodology [5-7]. LCA offer evaluation of product and process tracking down the major inputs and outputs of materials and energy, identifying and quantifying the energy and material uses, and assessing the environmental impact. LCA can widen system boundaries to contain all impacts on emissions and wastes. Given specific amounts of inputs used or outputs emitted, this kind of analysis is called a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). Even though LCA is conceptually simple, it is in reality quite complex and difficult due to the reasons like: some difficulties can arise when we want to define system boundaries, obtaining accurate data, and valuing the results properly. The framework of LCA includes the following stages: goal and scope of a study definition; a model is prepared for the product life cycle with all energy and materials inflows and outflows, referred to as LCI;

the environmental impact assessment is done based on the understanding of the environmental relevance of all the inflows and outflows during a life cycle; LCA results interpretation. Definition of the functional unit is the foundation of an LCA because the functional unit sets the scale for comparison of two or more products including improvement to one product. All data collected in the second stage will be related to the functional unit. When comparing different products fulfilling the same function (in our case connection joint), definition of the functional unit is of particular importance. Functional unit principal intention is to provide a reference to all inputs and outputs. Another important step in LCA is definition of system boundary, through which inputs such as energy and materials and outputs including goods and activities come and go. Materials and energy for functional units within the system boundary is estimated and their environmental burdens are evaluated. The definition of system boundaries is a quite subjective operation. Two different methods for LCA are used to assess the life cycle of products, materials or processes: process-level analysis and economic input-output analysis. Current ISO standards [6, 7] are based on process analysis so that most of LCAs have been performed using this method, where the resource uses, environmental releases from the main production processes, and some important contributions from suppliers are assessed. Second method, the economic inputout model proposed by Leontief [8], tracks down various economic transactions, resource requirements, and environmental emissions and uses inputoutput tables which model the whole economy with financial transactions between aggregated economic sectors.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT The goal of this study is to compare the environmental impact of two different ways of fabrication two different construction joints. First design of joint is simple, while second one is more complex beam to column joint. The joints are fabricated using two different technologies: welding and bolting. This study will provide designers a better understanding of the environmental impacts of their constructions details. This life cycle assessment has a cradle to gate perspective. It begins with the raw material at the factory and ends when construction joint is finished. In this case, use phase and disposal phase of the product are omitted. The cradle to gate perspective is often used when a complete LCA cannot be conducted for a reason like lack of some data. Environmental assessments are based on public available free resource like ELCD core database [9], because it was impossible to get the data from the fabricators. A huge number of specific LCA methodologies, databases and software tools are available in the market, but the price of an LCA software tools can be quite high. This is the reason that prevented us from carrying out the analysis with commercial LCA software. Some of the calculations were done using EXCEL spreadsheets and web application EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator [10]. 3.1 Simple design of joint First step in this assessment is to design a joint, where on one side of joint is constituted of fillet weld, while on the other side bolts are used as mechanical fasteners, as shown on Figure 2. Plates made of steel grade S235 JR with width 100 mm and thickness t = 10 mm are used. Length of these steel plates is irrelevant since this material will not be used as an input into the LCA assessment. To achieve equivalent load capacity of welded vs. bolted joint design some basic strength calculations was done. Equivalent to the three bolts M20 x 60 grade 5.8 (preloaded) with suitable nuts and washers represent two fillet welds with throat thickness a = 7 mm (equal to 0,7t) and length of 69 mm on both sides of steel plate.

Figure 2:

Investigated simple design of joint

The functional unit is one joint of each type, welded and bolted, without steel plates. Because of comparison nature of study, steel plates can be neglected since they have the same influence in a case of welded or bolted joint. The system boundaries definition shown on Figure 3 represents raw material, energy and processes to be included in LCA of welded (left side) and bolted joint (right side). Several processes are not included like: degreasing before welding in a case of welded joint and after drilling in case of bolted joint; intermediate and final grinding of weld if needed; final NDT testing of weld; disposal/recycle of waste such as packing material; other processes (designing, storage of material, maintenance of machines).

Figure 3:

System boundaries of welding (left) and bolting process (right)

In a case of welded joint fillet, weld was made using MAG welding with non-alloyed steel filler material (electrode wire) 1,2 mm and shielding gas (mixture of 82% Ar and 18% CO2). Weld is made in three passes where welding current is approximately 220 A, voltage 22 V and welding speed 0,2 m/min. Shielding gas flow rate is equal to 15 l/min. Average value of 80% was used for efficiency of arc welding power source and 95% for efficiency of filler material melting. Regarding input data for transportation values are representative for Europe, while steel production for welding wire, bolt, nut and washer is based on average value of 90% of recycled steel. Emissions during welding associated with the direct melting of electrode wire and parent material are included as emissions based on various past measurements of fume emissions in gas shielded arc processes [11].

After research and calculation of system elements shown on Figure 3 for welded joint, following specific emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria pollutants in Table 1 are extracted from results. First column represents emissions for 1 m of fillet weld, while values in second column are valid for length of six times the length of the weld (because weld was made in three passes on both sides of steel plate) and is equal 0,414 m. Table 2 presents results of specific emissions calculation for bolted joint, where three bolts (plus nut and washers) are used. In calculation is also included drilling of holes, while in case of tightening the bolts human power is used. Table 1: Specific emissions in [kg] for MAG welding of fillet weld a=7 mm Airborn emission 1m of weld [kg] 0,48 0,0053 0,00091 0,000006 0,00076 5,0E-09 2,3E-09 0,00078 14,0E-09 0,60 Airborn emission 0,414m of weld [kg] 0,2 0,0022 0,00038 0,0000025 0,00031 2,1E-09 9,5E-10 0,00032 5,8E-09 0,25

GHG/Pollutant CO2-Carbon dioxide CO-Carbon monoxide CH4 Methane N2O-Dinitrogen monoxide NOx-Nitrogen oxide HFC-Hydrofluorocarbon gases CF4-Perfluorocarbon gases SO2-Sulfur dioxide SF6-Sulfur hexafluoride Total CO2 equivalent Table 2:

Specific emissions in [kg] for bolted joint with three M20 bolts GHG/Pollutant CO2-Carbon dioxide CO-Carbon monoxide CH4 Methane N2O-Dinitrogen monoxide NOx-Nitrogen oxide HFC-Hydrofluorocarbon gases CF4-Perfluorocarbon gases SO2-Sulfur dioxide SF6-Sulfur hexafluoride Total CO2 equivalent Airborn emission [kg] 1,36 0,013 0,0032 0,000023 0,0027 0 0 0,0025 3,4E-08 1,75

Second step of this simple design joint analysis is quantification of the energy used to produce connection. Calculated energy consumption for input material of welded joint include energy used to produce electrode wire and shielding gas, while in a case of bolted joint present energy used for production of bolts, nuts and washers. Energy used for tightening the bolts is not included, because work was done by human. Table 3: Comparison of energy used for welded and bolted joint Bolted joint Energy [kJ] Input material 285,4 Drilling 554,2 Total energy used 839,6

Welded joint Energy [kJ] Input material 81,0 Welding 751,4 Total energy used 832,4

From the results in Tables 1 to 3 it can be seen quite a noticeable difference between welded and bolted joint in favor of welded joint, especially in case of total CO2 equivalent. Total emission

in CO2 equivalent is around seven times higher, while total energy used is approximately the same as in case of bolted joint. When we take a look in details of CO2 equivalent of bolted joint, almost 1,18 kg of CO2 equivalent is emitted due to drilling operation of three holes (for removing 0,25 kg of steel). For additional interpretation of total energy consumption of welded joint, we must not forget that energy for grinding (if needed) and final NDT testing is not included. One of the important differences between two designs is also in a quantity of input material which is needed to provide satisfactory connection strength. In case of welded joint input material represent weight of 0,06 kg of steel (weld), while in case of bolted joint, weight is around 0,64 kg of steel (bolts, nuts, washers). This is reason for higher value of energy used for input material in case of bolted joint.

3.2 Beam to column joint For the second case study, we have used the design of beam to column, which was designed by authors of Lit. [12, 13]. Comparison of static and dynamic strength of fully welded vs. bolted beam to column joints were done in their research work. For our assessment we have select two comparable joints shown on Figure 4. As in a case of simple joint design, steel of grade S235 JR was used to fabricate joint. The bolts were M16 grade 8.8 preloaded. For bolted joint additional 120x120x10 angles have been adopted. For fabrication of fully-welded joint MAG welding of fillet welds with throat thickness a = 7 mm was anticipated (same as in case of simple joint design).

Figure 4:

Fully-welded (left) and bolted (right) beam to column joint [11]

Data collection and calculation was done in a similar way as in a case of simple joint design. Results of environmental assessment are presented in the following tables. Table 4: Comparison of specific emissions in [kg] for beam to column joint Welded joint Airborn emission [kg] 1,73 0,019 0,0033 0,000022 0,0027 0,000000018 8,3E-09 0,0028 5,0E-08 2,16 Bolted joint Airborn emission [kg] 10,98 0,10 0,027 0,00016 0,020 0 0 0,021 3,6E-07 14,18

GHG/Pollutant CO2-Carbon dioxide CO-Carbon monoxide CH4 Methane N2O-Dinitrogen monoxide NOx-Nitrogen oxide HFC-Hydrofluorocarbon gases CF4-Perfluorocarbon gases SO2-Sulfur dioxide SF6-Sulfur hexafluoride Total CO2 equivalent

Table 5:

Comparison of energy used for welded and bolted beam to column joint Bolted joint Energy [kJ] Input material 4154,5 Drilling 2212,7 Total energy used 6367,2

Welded joint Energy [kJ] Input material 704,3 Welding 6533,9 Total energy used 7238,3

As stated for simple joint design, the total CO2 equivalent of bolted beam to column joint is approximately seven times greater than in a case of welded joint. From this point of view, welded design is more environmentally friendly then bolted. On the other hand, energy consumption is higher if we use welding as fabrication process. If energy used for grinding and NDT testing of final weld is added, then the value will be even higher.

4. CONCLUSION To understand which joint design and fabrication process is optimal from environmental point of view, LCA was performed for different connection joints. To get complete picture about environmental impact many factors need to be considered, but assessment in this study based on two parameters: total CO2 equivalent emissions and total energy used. Obtained results indicate that both parameters must be estimated, because, roughly said, total CO2 equivalent emissions puts welding in first place, while parameter total energy used puts bolting in first place. However it must not be forgotten that assessment was not covering the whole life cycle of joints. In recycle/reuse stage bolted joints can gain some advantage, but only minor, because structural bolts cant be reused and can only be recycle. Use of high-strength steel in constructions can also be another advantage for bolted joints. In this case preheating (maybe also post heat treatment) is needed for welding and environmental impact of this additional process is not negligible. If taking into account also possible repairs of welds, then welding lose all advantages. LCA used in this study has however certain limitations: functional unit and system boundaries were set in a manner that comparison of results is possible, while absolute values of results can be misleading; for detailed LCA more precise inventory data (databases) of all of the elementary processes included within the parameters of the system is needed (e.g. data for NDT testing of weld is missing); results are geographically dependent. Each fastening technology has its advantages and disadvantages for manufacturing, installation, and material usage. In first place, the key for designer is to use the fastening method that best meets structural and safety needs. After that designers can evaluate also economic and environmental influence of their designs.

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