A Life Cycle Cost Analysis for Pre-fabricated Steel Structure Buildings

This paper compares the life cycle cost of two commonly used structural systems for buildings,pre-fabricated steel structure system and cast-in-situ concrete frame structure system.The case study of the No.2 experimental primary school building,located in Jiyang County,is presented as an illustrative example.Ten design solutions are proposed for this case study covering these two structural systems,combining different types of exterior wall,slab and interior wall systems.A life cycle cost analysis is performed to evaluate the economic impact among these design options,including initial cost,construction cost,maintenance cost,demolition cost and residual value.The results have shown that the pre-fabricated steel frame structure system has a significant advantage over the cast-in-situ concrete frame structure system based on the total life cycle cost.Pre-fabricated steel structure building is more cost-effective and is more worthy of being promoted and applied.