An Inquiry into the Life Cycle of Systems of Inner Walls: Comparison of Masonry and Drywall

Life Cycle Assessment is a methodology that investigates impacts linked to a product or service during its entire life cycle. Life Cycle Assessment studies investigate processes and sub-processes in a fragmented way to ascertain their inputs, outputs and emissions and get an overview of the generating sources of their environmental loads. The lifecycle concept involves all direct and indirect processes of the studied object. This article aims to model the material flows in the masonry and drywall systems and internal walls in a Brazilian scenario, and calculate the climate change impacts generated by the transport of the component materials of the systems. Internal walls of a residential dwelling in Rio de Janeiro are analyzed from a qualitative inventory of all life cycles with an analysis of material flows, based on technical and academic literature. All Life Cycle Impact Assessment of the systems is carried out with international data from the database, and using the IPCC2013 method for climate change impacts. This study disregards the refurbishment and possible extensions within the use phase. Thus, the inventory identifies weaknesses of the systems while the impact assessment validates the results. This study allows us a complete understanding about the inner walls systems in the Brazilian scenario, evidencing its main weaknesses and subsidizes decision-making for the industry and for planning of the new buildings.