Waste and robots: An opportunity for the future of carbon neutral buildings

Waste derived from constructions and demolitions creates an opportunity to lower the carbon footprint of buildings. As bricks and concrete make up two of the most common construction materials world-wide, once the buildings they are built into, reach their end life, a large portion of the waste becomes available for reuse, rich in properties...

The future of concrete recycling: An integrated life cycle environmental and cost analysis on the hotspots to improve the demolition and recycling practices across Europe

Building construction is a material-intensive process known for depleting natural resources, mainly gravel and sand, used in concrete production. At the same time, building demolition generates large amounts of construction and demolition waste (CDW), primarily consisting of end-of-life (EOL) concrete, a significant waste flow occurring in...

Experimental investigation of concrete mixtures incorporating recycled concrete aggregates

In the Netherlands, yearly 33 Mton new concrete (roughly 15 billion m3) is producewhile 12 Mton concrete waste becomes available. Recycling of the yearly 12 Mton concrete waste results in roughly 7 Mton coarse recycled concrete aggregate (CRCA) and 5 Mton fine recycled concrete aggregates (fRCA). Currently, fRCA is not used in structural...

Sedimentation in the Botlek Harbour - A research into driving water exchange mechanisms.

Siltation of harbour basins and navigation channels is a serious problem in the port of Rotterdam as well in many other harbours all over the world. Due to siltation, basins and channels require frequent maintenance dredging to guarantee safe navigational depths. The costs associated with these dredging activities are quite high. To keep the...