Reuse of Shipping Containers in the Context of Energy Efficiency: A Life Cycle Assessment Example to Determine Wall Configurations

Abstract

The reuse of shipping containers, which have completed their task of freight transportation, as prefabricated and modular building units, by adapting them in the factory and reusing them in architecture has been frequently encountered recently. However, a number of features arising from their production indicate the importance of the decisions to be taken in their adaptation in the factory. In addition, in order to provide maximum “environmental benefit” with this solution developed on the basis of providing “waste management” and “resource conservation”, the environmental effects of additional building materials needed in their adaptation should be examined. Accordingly, in this study, container wall configurations created with different assembly scenarios for use in container houses to be implemented in Samsun were compared in terms of environmental preferability. The comparison was carried out with the “life cycle assessment” method, which helps decision makers to compare all important environmental impacts when choosing between alternative courses of action. For this, first of all; the construction materials that can be used were selected from the “Ecoinvent 3.8” database, distribution methods were checked, deficiencies, if any, were added and differences were adapted. Then, different assembly scenarios were created. Then, all the arranged construction material data were associated with the functional unit in the assembly scenarios that provide the same functional basis. In this direction; based on the minimum limit that the wall element should provide for the degree day zone where it will be applied according to TS 825, the building material thicknesses to be used in each scenario were calculated and their quantities were determined with m² conversions. Finally; the impact assessment of all the architectural configurations created with the assembly scenarios was carried out at two different levels with the “ReCiPe 2016 V1.07” method within the “SimaPro PhD 9.4.0.2” software tool. At the end of the study, both the container wall configuration that provides the best performance by providing the lowest environmental impact was obtained and the quantitative environmental impacts of this configuration were determined. The study results are expected to increase awareness of the importance of life cycle assessment in shell designs.