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<p>The sustainability of industrial steel structures is significantly affected by the environmental, economic, and social performance of tubular steel joints. These tubular joints form hot spots for material, fabrication, and carbon footprints of industrial buildings. This study gives a comprehensive overview of the current advancements in LCA of tubular steel joints under ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 with LCC and S-LCA integrated with engineering-based sustainability assessment. This paper puts a lot of emphasis on technical emission drivers, joint design optimizations for carbon reduction, circular economy concept, and digital engineering tools. Comparison between existing studies reveals that optimization in joint geometry, weld arrangement, and fabrication processes may decrease embodied carbon by about 18–25%, and fabrication energy by 15–20%; however, the level of reduction depends on the routes of steel production, generation of electric power, used technologies of fabrication, and assumptions made during the boundary setting of system. It is worth noting that the fabrication phase accounts for about 60–70% of GWP, whereas around 90–95% of structural steel can be recovered using reuse and recycling strategies. As compared to other reviews discussing the sustainability of materials or buildings, this study critically analyses the sustainability of tubular steel joints by combining lifecycle assessment, structural optimization, technical emission drivers, circular economy approach, and digital engineering approaches including FEM, BIM, digital twins, and AI. It highlights the research gaps regarding the lack of standard joint-level LCA databases, regional lifecycle inventory datasets, and AI-based predictive frameworks for performance-based lifecycle sustainability assessment.</p>

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Lifecycle Sustainability of Tubular Steel Joints: Insights Into Fabrication Impacts, Design Optimization, and Circular Economy

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月3日

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  • Iyappan G R,
  • P. Sangeetha

摘要

The sustainability of industrial steel structures is significantly affected by the environmental, economic, and social performance of tubular steel joints. These tubular joints form hot spots for material, fabrication, and carbon footprints of industrial buildings. This study gives a comprehensive overview of the current advancements in LCA of tubular steel joints under ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 with LCC and S-LCA integrated with engineering-based sustainability assessment. This paper puts a lot of emphasis on technical emission drivers, joint design optimizations for carbon reduction, circular economy concept, and digital engineering tools. Comparison between existing studies reveals that optimization in joint geometry, weld arrangement, and fabrication processes may decrease embodied carbon by about 18–25%, and fabrication energy by 15–20%; however, the level of reduction depends on the routes of steel production, generation of electric power, used technologies of fabrication, and assumptions made during the boundary setting of system. It is worth noting that the fabrication phase accounts for about 60–70% of GWP, whereas around 90–95% of structural steel can be recovered using reuse and recycling strategies. As compared to other reviews discussing the sustainability of materials or buildings, this study critically analyses the sustainability of tubular steel joints by combining lifecycle assessment, structural optimization, technical emission drivers, circular economy approach, and digital engineering approaches including FEM, BIM, digital twins, and AI. It highlights the research gaps regarding the lack of standard joint-level LCA databases, regional lifecycle inventory datasets, and AI-based predictive frameworks for performance-based lifecycle sustainability assessment.