Subtopic Deep Dive

Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction
Research Guide

What is Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction?

Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction applies LCC models to assess total costs of materials, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and disposal over a building's lifespan.

Researchers use LCC to compare alternatives like prefabricated systems and insulation options, incorporating discount rates and uncertainty. Key papers include Santos et al. (2019) on BIM-LCC integration (282 citations) and Khasreen et al. (2009) reviewing LCA impacts (758 citations). Over 10 listed papers exceed 165 citations each.

Curated Papers

Key Challenges

Why It Matters

LCC optimizes material selection and maintenance strategies, reducing long-term costs in building projects (Roberge, 2000; 1211 citations). It supports sustainable decisions, as in green building evaluations (Zuo et al., 2016; 233 citations) and prefabricated systems (Navaratnam et al., 2019; 284 citations). Dwaikat and Ali (2018; 167 citations) demonstrate practical budget development for office buildings.

Key Research Challenges

Data Uncertainty in Projections

Long-term cost estimates face variability in maintenance and energy use (Roberge, 2000). Walls and Smith (1998; 203 citations) highlight challenges in pavement LCC adaptable to buildings. Accurate discount rates remain difficult over 50-year spans.

BIM-LCC Integration Gaps

Linking BIM models to LCC requires standardized data flows (Santos et al., 2019; 282 citations). Santos et al. (2019; 167 citations) note interoperability issues in Western Europe offices. Validation across software platforms persists as a barrier.

Prefabrication Cost Modeling

Modular systems demand new LCC frameworks beyond traditional methods (Navaratnam et al., 2019; 284 citations). Wuni and Shen (2019; 217 citations) identify success factors but stress lifecycle cost validation. Australian market adoption lags due to incomplete models.

Essential Papers

Handbook of corrosion engineering

Pierre R. Roberge · 2000 · Choice Reviews Online · 1.2K citations

Cells / 3 1.3A Simple Corrosion Model / 6 1.4 So, What Is Corrosion?/ 14 1.5 Strategic Impact and Cost of Corrosion Damage / 17 References / 20 Chapter 2. Environments 2.1 Atmospheric Corrosion / 2...

Life-Cycle Assessment and the Environmental Impact of Buildings: A Review

Mohamad Monkiz Khasreen, Phillip Frank Gower Banfill, Gillian Frances Menzies · 2009 · Sustainability · 758 citations

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of various management tools for evaluating environmental concerns. This paper reviews LCA from a buildings perspective. It highlights the need for its use within ...

Performance Review of Prefabricated Building Systems and Future Research in Australia

Satheeskumar Navaratnam, Tuan Ngo, Tharaka Gunawardena et al. · 2019 · Buildings · 284 citations

Volumetric prefabricated building construction is growing in most developed countries; for example, in Sweden the market share of prefabricated building systems in the housing industry was more tha...

Integration of LCA and LCC analysis within a BIM-based environment

Rúben Santos, António Aguiar Costa, José Dinis Silvestre et al. · 2019 · Automation in Construction · 282 citations

Green building evaluation from a life-cycle perspective in Australia: A critical review

Jian Zuo, Stephen Pullen, Raufdeen Rameezdeen et al. · 2016 · Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · 233 citations

Critical success factors for modular integrated construction projects: a review

Ibrahim Yahaya Wuni, Qiping Shen · 2019 · Building Research & Information · 217 citations

Modular integrated construction (MiC) is an innovative construction approach which transforms the fragmented linear site-based construction of buildings into an integrated production and assembly o...

Life-Cycle Cost Analysis in Pavement Design — Interim Technical Bulletin

James Walls, Michael R. Smith · 1998 · 203 citations

Tactics of treatment of patients owing high risk of the hemorrhage recurrence occurrence from varicosely changed gastroesophageal veins, caused by liver cirrhosis, was elaborated, based on individu...

Reading Guide

Foundational Papers

Start with Roberge (2000; 1211 citations) for corrosion cost basics impacting maintenance LCC, then Khasreen et al. (2009; 758 citations) for building LCA foundations, and Walls and Smith (1998; 203 citations) for LCC methodology.

Recent Advances

Study Santos et al. (2019; 282 citations) for BIM-LCC integration and Navaratnam et al. (2019; 284 citations) for prefabrication advances; Dwaikat and Ali (2018; 167 citations) for practical green building applications.

Core Methods

Core techniques: Net present value with discount rates (Walls and Smith, 1998); BIM data extraction for LCC (Santos et al., 2019); probabilistic corrosion modeling (Roberge, 2000); multicriteria wall insulation evaluation (Ginevičius et al., 2008).

How PapersFlow Helps You Research Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction

Discover & Search

Research Agent uses searchPapers and citationGraph to map LCC-BIM papers from Santos et al. (2019; 282 citations), revealing clusters around Roberge (2000; 1211 citations). exaSearch finds niche queries like 'LCC prefabricated buildings Australia'; findSimilarPapers expands from Khasreen et al. (2009).

Analyze & Verify

Analysis Agent applies readPaperContent to extract LCC models from Santos et al. (2019), then runPythonAnalysis for discount rate simulations using NumPy/pandas on cost data. verifyResponse with CoVe and GRADE grading checks uncertainty claims against Roberge (2000), providing statistical verification of 20-year projections.

Synthesize & Write

Synthesis Agent detects gaps in BIM-LCC data flows from Santos et al. (2019), flagging contradictions with Navaratnam et al. (2019). Writing Agent uses latexEditText, latexSyncCitations for LCC reports, latexCompile for publication-ready PDFs, and exportMermaid for cost flowchart diagrams.

Use Cases

"Compare LCC of prefabricated vs traditional building systems in Australia"

Research Agent → searchPapers + findSimilarPapers (Navaratnam et al., 2019) → Analysis Agent → runPythonAnalysis (pandas cost comparison, matplotlib plots) → Synthesis Agent → exportCsv of results.

"Model life cycle costs for green office building with BIM"

Research Agent → citationGraph (Santos et al., 2019) → Analysis Agent → readPaperContent + verifyResponse → Writing Agent → latexEditText + latexSyncCitations + latexCompile (generates BIM-LCC LaTeX report).

"Find Python code for building LCC discount rate calculations"

Research Agent → paperExtractUrls from Dwaikat and Ali (2018) → Code Discovery → paperFindGithubRepo + githubRepoInspect → runPythonAnalysis (sandbox tests repo code on sample building data).

Automated Workflows

Deep Research workflow conducts systematic review of 50+ LCC papers, chaining searchPapers → citationGraph → GRADE summaries for building construction meta-analysis. DeepScan applies 7-step verification to Santos et al. (2019) BIM models, with runPythonAnalysis checkpoints on cost uncertainties. Theorizer generates hypotheses on prefabrication LCC from Navaratnam et al. (2019) and Wuni and Shen (2019).

Try Doxa for Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction Research

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Life Cycle Costing in Building Construction?

LCC calculates total ownership costs from design to demolition, including maintenance and energy (Santos et al., 2019). It uses net present value with discount rates.

What methods are used in building LCC?

Common methods integrate BIM for data flow (Santos et al., 2019; 282 citations) and probabilistic modeling for uncertainty (Roberge, 2000). Prefabrication LCC adapts pavement techniques (Walls and Smith, 1998).

What are key papers on this subtopic?

Foundational: Roberge (2000; 1211 citations) on corrosion costs; Khasreen et al. (2009; 758 citations) on building LCA. Recent: Santos et al. (2019; 282/167 citations) on BIM-LCC; Navaratnam et al. (2019; 284 citations) on prefabrication.

What open problems exist in building LCC?

Challenges include BIM standardization (Santos et al., 2019), long-term data uncertainty (Roberge, 2000), and modular cost validation (Wuni and Shen, 2019). Real-time integration with IoT maintenance data remains unsolved.