Competitive Ranges of Timber, Concrete, and Steel Beams Based on Cost Optimization and Sensitivity Analysis, Including CO2 Emission Costs

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Abstract

This paper examines the competitive ranges of timber, steel, and reinforced concrete beams, determined using multi-parameter cost optimization that includes global warming costs (CO2 emissions) associated with beam production. Simply supported beams subjected to self-weight and uniform imposed loads were optimized using discrete mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP). The objective functions included material, energy, labor, and CO2 emission costs associated only with manufacturing. Concrete remains the most cost-effective material across nearly all configurations, with glulam and steel being 2.3 and 2.8 times more expensive, respectively. Sawn timber outperforms concrete (by 9.5%) only at short spans (7.5 m) and low loads (10 kN/m1). Environmentally, timber yields the lowest manufacturing footprint, while steel and concrete emit 3.0 and 1.8 times more CO2 than glulam. Currently, CO2 emission costs average just 3.8% of total costs. However, a sensitivity analysis shows that extreme carbon taxes break concrete’s monopoly, increasing its costs by up to 637.4% and making timber the cheapest option for low-to-medium loads. Concrete is resilient to material price shocks at larger scales but highly vulnerable to rising labor rates (up to a 66.3% increase). While current carbon pricing is too low to influence material selection, future substantial tax escalations will shift structural competitiveness toward timber.

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