Issue |
MATEC Web Conf.
Volume 403, 2024
SUBLime Conference 2024 – Towards the Next Generation of Sustainable Masonry Systems: Mortars, Renders, Plasters and Other Challenges
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Article Number | 06004 | |
Number of page(s) | 17 | |
Section | Sustainability and Circularity | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/202440306004 | |
Published online | 16 September 2024 |
Masonry walls from reclaimed concrete demolition waste
Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
The construction sector is the largest consumer of non-renewable resources and the most significant contributor to CO2 emissions. Reusing entire components or reclaiming their constituent parts, instead of recycling structural elements at the material level, is preserving the embodied energy of the structural elements. This contributes to energy conservation and addresses the mounting issue of construction waste in landfills. In order to develop a new avenue for reusing concrete, this study uses concrete demolition waste to construct masonry wallets, employing a construction technique reminiscent of traditional stone masonry with mortar. Importantly, this methodology is not confined to buildings initially designed for reuse, making it applicable to any reinforced concrete structure earmarked for demolition. Mechanical tests were conducted on the masonry wallets, including simple and diagonal compression tests. The results indicate that the strengths achieved are comparable to those of clay hollow brick masonry, opening up diverse applications, especially in the construction of residential buildings. Numerical analysis started with digital twinning of small-scale masonry wallets as a first step to future micro-modelling, FEM simulation, and calibration to best conform with the experimental test results. Through a comprehensive analysis encompassing embodied carbon footprint, mechanical properties, and economic considerations at the load-bearing wall level, this study highlights this reuse approach’s key advantages and drawbacks, providing insights into its feasibility within the framework of modern construction practices.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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