| Title: | Competitive ranges of timber, concrete, and steel beams based on cost optimization and sensitivity analysis, including CO2 emission costs |
|---|
| Authors: | ID Kravanja, Stojan (Author)
ID Žula, Tomaž (Author) |
|---|
| Files: |  buildings-16-02867.pdf (2,26 MB)
MD5: 9BFB75BD690232F68678DFA238DDB427
 https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/16/14/2867
|
|---|
| Language: | English |
|---|
| Work type: | Article |
|---|
| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
|---|
| Organization: | FGPA - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture
|
|---|
| Abstract: | This paper examines the competitive ranges of timber, steel, and reinforced concrete beams, determined using multi-parameter cost optimization that includes global warming costs (CO2 emissions) associated with beam production. Simply supported beams subjected to self-weight and uniform imposed loads were optimized using discrete mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP). The objective functions included material, energy, labor, and CO2 emission costs associated only with manufacturing. Concrete remains the most cost-effective material across nearly all configurations, with glulam and steel being 2.3 and 2.8 times more expensive, respectively. Sawn timber outperforms concrete (by 9.5%) only at short spans (7.5 m) and low loads (10 kN/m1). Environmentally, timber yields the lowest manufacturing footprint, while steel and concrete emit 3.0 and 1.8 times more CO2 than glulam. Currently, CO2 emission costs average just 3.8% of total costs. However, a sensitivity analysis shows that extreme carbon taxes break concrete’s monopoly, increasing its costs by up to 637.4% and making timber the cheapest option for low-to-medium loads. Concrete is resilient to material price shocks at larger scales but highly vulnerable to rising labor rates (up to a 66.3% increase). While current carbon pricing is too low to influence material selection, future substantial tax escalations will shift structural competitiveness toward timber. |
|---|
| Keywords: | timber beams, steel beams, reinforced concrete beams, cost optimization, discrete optimization, mixed-integer non-linear programming, global warming costs, CO2 emissions, sensitivity analysis |
|---|
| Publication status: | Published |
|---|
| Publication version: | Version of Record |
|---|
| Submitted for review: | 29.05.2026 |
|---|
| Article acceptance date: | 16.07.2026 |
|---|
| Publication date: | 18.07.2026 |
|---|
| Publisher: | MDPI |
|---|
| Year of publishing: | 2026 |
|---|
| Number of pages: | 33 str. |
|---|
| Numbering: | Vol. 16, issue 14, [article no.] 2867 |
|---|
| PID: | 20.500.12556/DKUM-98936  |
|---|
| UDC: | 624:504.7 |
|---|
| ISSN on article: | 2075-5309 |
|---|
| COBISS.SI-ID: | 285391619 |
|---|
| DOI: | 10.3390/buildings16142867 |
|---|
| Publication date in DKUM: | 20.07.2026 |
|---|
| Views: | 316 |
|---|
| Downloads: | 13 |
|---|
| Metadata: |    |
|---|
| Categories: | Misc.
|
|---|
|
:
|
Copy citation |
|---|
| | | | Average score: | (0 votes) |
|---|
| Your score: | Voting is allowed only for logged in users. |
|---|
| Share: |  |
|---|
Hover the mouse pointer over a document title to show the abstract or click
on the title to get all document metadata. |
