On-demand Webinar

View Important Policies and System Requirements for this course.

This webinar was co-sponsored by ASCE's Geo-Institute (G-I) and ASCE Continuing Education

Instructor:  Craig H. Benson, Ph.D, P.E., DGE, M.ASCE

Course Length: 1 Hour

Purpose and Background

There is increased interest in green construction and creating sustainable infrastructure. Most of the development in this regard has been in connection with building construction, e.g., the LEED system. However, engineers and policymakers now realize that greater emphasis must be placed on quantiatively evaluating sustainability metrics/benefits for green construction. Energy savings, emissions reductions, water savings, and other sustainability metrics need to be quantified. Project managers and contractors also realize a competitive advantage by quantifying the sustainability benefits associated with their green construction processes. This webinar will highlight the quantitative benefits of sustainable construction using recycled materials and illustrate how life cycle analysis (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) can be used to quantify the benefits of green construction in geotechnical applications. It will illustrate how sustainability analysis is used with real-world examples.

Learning Outcomes and Benefits

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

  • Determine the latest developments in sustainable geotechnical design
  • Examine how LCA and LCCA are used to quantify sustainability in design
  • Become more competitive by learning sustainability principles and metrics
  • Apply quantitative methods of evaluating designs relative to greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption, and waste minimization
  • Identify recycled materials, where they can be used, and their benefits in terms of sustainability
  • Be better tuned with the ASCE Code of Ethics relative to "sustainability"

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Students' achievement of the learning outcomes will be assessed via a short post-assessment (true-false, multiple choice and fill in the blank questions).

Intended Audience

This webinar is primarily geared towards construction engineers, transportation engineers, materials engineers, geotechnical engineers and contractors who work in the highway environment. This webinar will also be useful for project managers, environmental engineers, recycled aggregate producers/suppliers, regulators and others who want to learn more about the use of recycled materials in infrastructure.

Construction engineers, materials engineers, geotechnical engineers, highway engineers, environmental engineers, government engineers, highway planners, regulators, sustainability coordinators, and public works engineers will benefit from this webinar.

Seminar Outline

  • Quantitative assessment of the benefits of using recycled materials
  • Equivalent design with recycled materials
  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): reductions in energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and landfilling
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA)
  • Establishing targets and methodology
  • Greening of earthen construction
  • Introduction to recycled pavement base aggregates: recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), recycled road surface gravel (RSG), recycled pavement material (RPM) and building derived concrete (BDC)
  • Types and attributes of RAP, RCA, RSG, RPM and BDC
  • Design with recycled base aggregates (resilient modulus and plastic strain)
  • Effect of impurities and freeze-thaw
  • Fly ash stabilized recycled base aggregates: geotechnical properties and leaching characteristics
  • Specifying recycled base aggregate

How to Earn your CEUs/PDHs and Receive Your Certificate of Completion

To receive your certificate of completion, you will need to complete a short on-line post-test and receive a passing score of 70% or higher within 1 year of purchasing the course.

How do I convert CEUs to PDHs?

1.0 CEU = 10 PDHs [Example: 0.1 CEU = 1 PDH]