Abstract
Steel is known as the most consumed metal in the world. Especially the use of steel in building and civil engineering sector accounts for the largest share in the total steel consumption. The flow and stock of steel has been intensively studied by material flow analysis (MFA) methodologies. The steel intensity for buildings largely depends on building structure, which is further decided by various factors, e.g. local economics, environment, frequency of earthquakes, culture, etc. However, these factors were seldom considered in previous MFA studies when estimating building steel stocks. In this paper, the worldwide difference in building structural composition was compared, and average building steel intensity was calculated. The authors examined the influence of GDP per capita, frequency of earthquakes, and average people killed per earthquake on the building structural composition, and the average building steel intensity. As the result, Asia-Pacific countries show relatively higher average building steel intensity than European countries, which is attributable to the seismic frequency. However, countries like China could have low average building steel intensity even with high seismic risk due to their low GDP per capita. These countries indicate high potential in growth of steel consumption in building sector in the future.
