CEE Ph.D. Defense Announcement: Sustainable Additively Manufactured Concrete for Wind Energy Infrastructure - A Life-Cycle Environmental Framework

Abstract: The large-scale deployment of wind energy is critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving long-term energy sustainability. Expanding wind infrastructure, particularly ultra-tall turbine towers, large foundations and offshore anchoring systems, requires advanced manufacturing approaches paired with more sustainable construction materials. This dissertation develops a comprehensive life-cycle environmental framework to evaluate wind energy infrastructure enabled by concrete additive manufacturing (3D printing). The framework quantifies environmental impacts across materials production, transportation, construction and end-of-life stages, enabling systematic comparison of alternative materials, manufacturing and construction methods, structural designs and recycling strategies. Guided by these new insights, the dissertation advances fundamental understandings of how recycled concrete-derived ingredients can be strategically incorporated into new, high-performance cementitious materials, and develops an unprecedented 3D-printable, high-strength cementitious material incorporating 100% recycled fine aggregates and up to 40% recycled cementitious powders, while achieving compressive strengths above 78 MPa. Life-cycle assessment results show that this approach can reduce life cycle CO₂ emissions by up to 20%, highlighting the potential of additively manufactured concrete to enable more sustainable wind energy infrastructure.