DESIGN TOOLS FOR LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS AND DURABILITY EVALUATION OF BUILDING SYSTEMS: A RESEARCH ON THE BUILDING ENVELOPE

The behavior and service life prediction of building systems requires to develop tools to assist the designer. The paper is focused on a research carried out in the Department of Architecture and Design with the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the Politecnico di Torino. The goal is to develop a design tool to forecast the building subsystem durability and to help the designer in design options. The method is based on FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) developed in a qualitative way as well as in a probabilistic way. The analyst assess the functional models, the failures and the consequent predicted service life of components. The designer will select materials defining the risk coming from environmental agents, design, materials and workmanship. The estimated service life has been assessed by Monte Carlo method. The external walls was the example tested using data by investigations in the area of northern Italy and from literature.