We are pleased to announce Version 2 of the Impact Estimator for Highways, our acclaimed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software package for North American roadway designers. We invite you to download the latest version of our free highway tool today.
At the same time, we would like to use this opportunity to solicit your case studies to add to our sample project library. Please take a few moments to share your case studies at the link below to enhance the experience for all members of our user community.
As you know, the Impact Estimator for Highways allows transportation engineers and roadway designers to easily measure the environmental impact of Canadian regional roadway designs, providing environmental LCA results for the materials manufacturing, roadway construction, and maintenance life cycle stages.
Users can create custom roadway designs, or draw from a library of 144 existing roadway designs. The software includes a large equipment and materials database and the flexibility to specify unique pavement systems - sub-base and base granular materials as well as hot and warm mix asphalt, and a host of user specified concrete mix designs.
Users can also input use-phase operating energy and apply built-in pavement vehicle interaction algorithms, if desired, to be included in the final LCA results.
The software allows for quick and easy comparisons of multiple design options over a range of expected roadway lifespans.
Update to the latest version now, or read on to learn about the enhancements and updates we've added in this version.
What's new in Version 2
- TRACI 2.1: the US EPA issued a new version of its TRACI impact characterization methodology in 2012 and this new version of our software now supports the new methods and equivalency measures advocated by the EPA.
- Composite Products Library: we have overhauled this module to be more intuitive, and to improve the user experience.
- Pavement Vehicle Interaction (PVI) Generation II: The software's new PVI module is based on the latest research and model from the Concrete Sustainability Hub at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "PVI Mechanistic Model Gen II", developed by Dr. Arghavan Louhghalam, in collaboration with Mehdi Akbarian and Prof. Franz-Josef Ulm.
- 96 new sample projects and corresponding roadway assembly library records: 48 for Southern Quebec (Montreal) roadway designs, and 48 for Northern Quebec (Quebec City) designs.
- Updated purchased electricity profiles on a regional, national and North American inter-tie level.
- Updated transportation by truck profiles.
This release was made possible by support from the Cement Association of Canada and Athena Institute members.
Get Version 2 of the Impact Estimator for Highways here .
Share your case studies for inclusion in our sample project library here.
Find background information and user manuals here.
We look forward to your feedback on Version 2.
The Athena Team
www.athenasmi.org
