scholarly journals Matching Demolition and Construction Material Flows, an Urban Mining Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 653
Author(s):  
Teun Johannes Verhagen ◽  
Marijn Louise Sauer ◽  
Ester van der Voet ◽  
Benjamin Sprecher

The recycling of demolition waste is essential to lower the construction sectors primary material demand, responsible for 50% of the global primary material consumption. Almost all demolition waste is used as filler material for the construction of roads, preventing further reuse or recycling after this application. The built environment generates considerable annual material in-and outflows. However, there has been little discussion on the availability and further application of this potential supply of secondary materials as a replacement for primary materials. In this study, we quantify the percentage of demolition waste that can be repurposed as secondary materials in the Dutch construction sector. We analyzed the yearly building material flows for the municipality of Leiden using municipal data on demolition and construction to explore the viability of the Dutch government’s policy goal to reduce primary materials consumption by 50% before 2030. From this analysis, we find that the recycling of demolition waste has a sizable potential but just falls short of the stated policy goal. Even in a situation with more construction than demolition, there will remain a considerable mismatch in the yearly construction material demand and available supply of demolition waste for our municipal-wide case study. More importantly, the current processing of demolition waste in the Netherlands will require significant improvements to achieve this goal. New governmental policies are required to focus on maintaining material quality and allowing further use of recycled materials as buildings materials.

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-369
Author(s):  
Jonas Voorter ◽  
Christof Koolen

Abstract The construction sector plays a crucial role in the transition to a circular economy and a more sustainable society. With this objective in mind, Flanders – the Dutch speaking part of Belgium – makes use of a traceability procedure for construction and demolition waste in order to guarantee that value can be derived from downstream waste processing activities. This article takes this traceability procedure as a legal case study and examines if the use of blockchain technology could lead to even stronger supply chains, better data management, and, more generally, a smoother transition to circular practices in the construction sector.


2016 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 594-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Contreras ◽  
S.R. Teixeira ◽  
M.C. Lucas ◽  
L.C.N. Lima ◽  
D.S.L. Cardoso ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Hafez Salleh

Construction sector is unique in a way because more than 90% companies are Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME). This chapter presents a case study of a construction company with past and current projects valued up to £15 million, and has completed a number of construction projects both in private and the public sectors including housing, commerce, leisure, health, education, retail, et cetera. The company operates out of multiple locations and decided to improve the tendering process using a new IT system. On applying the IT readiness model it was found that almost all the attributes identified were not at lower level 1. The practice achieved maturity in three areas – skills and leadership are identified at level 5, and roles & responsibility were identified at the top of the level.


Author(s):  
Priyanka Thapa ◽  

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a global pandemic as declared by World Health Organization (WHO) is causing severe impacts in almost all aspects of life in Nepal. In response to this pandemic, Nepal Government announced a country-wide lockdown from 24th March 2020 and ended on 21st July 2020. Coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented event affecting almost every aspect of the construction sector in Nepal. Hence, this study was carried out to assess the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on Nepal’s construction sector based on selected construction projects. For this purpose, a case study of five ongoing construction projects was taken into account and questionnaires were distributed to responsible officials (client, consultant and contractor) of those projects. This study intended to find out the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on supply-demand trend analysis, cost and time of construction projects. Besides, this study also intends to find the contractual issues and claims associated with COVID-19 lockdown. The study reveals that COVID-19 caused serious disruption to the supply chain. Subsequently, project cost and time increases due to uncertainty regarding the availability of subcontractors/ suppliers/labour. The impact of COVID-19 lockdown however varies with the nature, scale and size of the project. Besides, the study also implies that contractual disputes are likely to increase due to lockdown. Each contract and its conditions have to be carefully analyzed to determine a party’s specific entitlement. There is uncertainty as to when the situation becomes normal and construction work can be carried out with optimum efficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zofia Wysokińska ◽  
Tomasz Czajkowski ◽  
Katarzyna Grabowska

AbstractNonwovens are one of the most versatile textile materials and have become increasingly popular in almost all sectors of the economy due to their low manufacturing costs and unique properties. In the next few years, the world market of nonwovens is predicted to grow by 7%–8% annually (International Nonwovens & Disposables Association [INDA], European Disposables and Nonwovens Association [EDANA], and Markets and Markets). This article aims to analyze the most recent trends in the global export and import of nonwovens, to present two case studies of Polish companies that produce them, and to present one special case study of the market of nonwoven geotextiles in China and India, which are the Asian transition economies among the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 791
Author(s):  
Sufei Zhang ◽  
Ying Guo

This paper introduces computer vision systems (CVSs), which provides a new method to measure gem colour, and compares CVS and colourimeter (CM) measurements of jadeite-jade colour in the CIELAB space. The feasibility of using CVS for jadeite-jade colour measurement was verified by an expert group test and a reasonable regression model in an experiment involving 111 samples covering almost all jadeite-jade colours. In the expert group test, more than 93.33% of CVS images are considered to have high similarities with real objects. Comparing L*, a*, b*, C*, h, and ∆E* (greater than 10) from CVS and CM tests indicate that significant visual differences exist between the measured colours. For a*, b*, and h, the R2 of the regression model for CVS and CM was 90.2% or more. CVS readings can be used to predict the colour value measured by CM, which means that CVS technology can become a practical tool to detect the colour of jadeite-jade.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7572
Author(s):  
Gigliola D’Angelo ◽  
Marina Fumo ◽  
Mercedes del Rio Merino ◽  
Ilaria Capasso ◽  
Assunta Campanile ◽  
...  

Demolition activity plays an important role in the total energy consumption of the construction industry in the European Union. The indiscriminate use of non-renewable raw materials, energy consumption, and unsustainable design has led to a redefinition of the criteria to ensure environmental protection. This article introduces an experimental plan that determines the viability of a new type of construction material, obtained from crushed brick waste, to be introduced into the construction market. The potential of crushed brick waste as a raw material in the production of building precast products, obtained by curing a geopolymeric blend at 60 °C for 3 days, has been exploited. Geopolymers represent an important alternative in reducing emissions and energy consumption, whilst, at the same time, achieving a considerable mechanical performance. The results obtained from this study show that the geopolymers produced from crushed brick were characterized by good properties in terms of open porosity, water absorption, mechanical strength, and surface resistance values when compared to building materials produced using traditional technologies.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3321
Author(s):  
Hyunjin Ju ◽  
Meirzhan Yerzhanov ◽  
Alina Serik ◽  
Deuckhang Lee ◽  
Jong R. Kim

The consumption of structural concrete in the construction industry is rapidly growing, and concrete will remain the main construction material for increasing urbanization all over the world in the near future. Meanwhile, construction and demolition waste from concrete structures is also leading to a significant environmental problem. Therefore, a proper sustainable solution is needed to address this environmental concern. One of the solutions can be using recycled coarse aggregates (RCA) in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Extensive research has been conducted in this area in recent years. However, the usage of RCA concrete in the industry is still limited due to the absence of structural regulations appropriate to the RCA concrete. This study addresses a safety margin of RCA concrete beams in terms of shear capacity which is comparable to natural coarse aggregates (NCA) concrete beams. To this end, a database for reinforced concrete beams made of recycled coarse aggregates with and without shear reinforcement was established, collecting the shear specimens available from various works in the existing literature. The database was used to statistically identify the strength margin between RCA and NCA concrete beams and to calculate its safety margin based on reliability analysis. Moreover, a comparability study of RCA beams was conducted with its control specimens and with a database for conventional RC beams.


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