A Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Dynamically Wound FRP Reinforcing Bars for Additively Manufactured Concrete Structures

Integrating non-corrosive reinforcement offers a transformative opportunity to reduce concrete cover and enable material-efficient additive manufacturing. However, compatible reinforcement strategies remain rare, and their environmental performance is largely unquantified. This study evaluates the environmental impact of basalt- and glass fibre-reinforced polymers produced using a Dynamic Winding Machine for on-site, free-form production in digital construction. Tensile tests yielded short-term tensile strengths of 804 MPa (glass) and 1106 MPa (basalt), which were used in structural beam calculations across ten additive manufacturing concrete mixtures. To ensure comparability, the reinforcement materials and concrete mixtures were assessed on an equal mass and volume basis, while the beam case study was evaluated based on equivalent structural performance. These data informed a cradle-to-gate (A1–A3) Environmental Life Cycle Assessment benchmarking in-house-produced reinforcements against steel and carbon fibre-reinforced polymers. Averaged across the mixtures, the range of Global Warming Potential total indicates that glass and basalt fibre-reinforced polymers achieve 13% and 15% lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional steel, whereas carbon fibre-reinforced polymers exhibit the highest Global Warming Potential total. Ultimately, the results substantiate free-form fibre-reinforced systems, particularly when combined with additive manufacturing and alternative concrete formulations, as a key strategy for advancing sustainable and climate-resilient construction.