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Demountable reinforced concrete structures - a way forward to minimize energy and waste in construction industry

Yes / In the current practice, at the end of life of a reinforced concrete struc-ture, it is destructively demolished, and the demolition waste is limited to downcycling and low-tech applications, while the remaining is being landfilled. A recent report showed that construction and demolition waste (CDW) is the big-gest waste stream in the EU by weight, accounting for over 800 million tons in 2018, i.e. around 32% of the total waste generated. This approach is clearly wasteful of energy, jeopardizing the health of individuals and environments and at high cost. However, design for deconstruction (DfD) of reinforced concrete structures would facilitate the future reuse of structural elements at the end of their life, potentially achieving a significant reduction in embodied energy of structures and CO2 emission as well as giving the owners the benefit of retaining the value of their assets.
In this paper, recent research developments and practical applications of DfD of reinforced concrete structures are reviewed and key technical issues are dis-cussed. The focus is on connections that should be designed in such a way to al-low demounting of precast reinforced concrete structural elements, including beam/column, wall/wall, column/column and segmental slab connections. The main achievements and progress to date are outlined for each type of dry connec-tions, along with the aspects that still need to be developed. The paper concludes with an outline of challenges in the application of DfD in concrete structures. / This project was supported by the Newton Prize 2020, UK-Turkey award, grant ref number NP2020PB\100026, funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. It has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 894100. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 1 June 2024. / This paper is from the fib Symposium 2023, Building for the future: Durable, Sustainable, Resilient. 5-7 Jun, Istanbul, Turkey.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19425
Date30 March 2023
CreatorsAshour, Ashraf, Figueira, Diogo, Almahmood, Hanady A.A., Yildirim, Gurkan, Aldemir, A., Sahmaran, M.
PublisherSpringerNature
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeConference paper, Accepted manuscript
Rights© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. This version of the contribution has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32519-9_6. Use of this Accepted Version is subject to the publisher’s Accepted Manuscript terms of use https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/policies/accepted-manuscript-terms., Unspecified

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