Reinforced Concrete Foundations: Carbon Awareness

Abstract

Concrete use produces carbon emissions excessively. For safety reasons, cost reasons, and convenience in construction, concrete is a nonnegotiable introducer of carbon emissions; it will not stop. It is nonetheless, more so even, as a result, increasingly important as climate change continues and global anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere proliferates to introduce mitigation into the concrete production and use that is increasing. This research aims to reduce the carbon emissions of reinforced concrete foundations by motivating material producers, optimizing structural design, alongside integrating sustainability into code for convenient design tools that maintain safety concerns upfront. Interestingly, existing research does not provide any conclusive evidence as to ways to outweigh concrete’s impact on climate change with sustainability concerns. It is important to continuously monitor data and to optimize based on that data without interrupting construction for safety reasons.