World Industrial Reporter

Innovation Delivered Daily

  • Innovation
    • Innovation Article Archive
    • Innovative Companies
    • Innovation Strategies
    • New Equipment Innovations
  • New Products
  • Additive Manufacturing
  • Markets
    • Market Trends
    • Tradeshow Reports
    • White Papers
  • Logistics
  • Newsletters
World Industrial Reporter » Innovation » A Concrete Made of Concrete

A Concrete Made of Concrete

October 11, 2021

1016x572

EPFL scientists have built a footbridge made up of concrete blocks repurposed from walls of a building being renovated.

Said to be a world’s first, the scientists led by assistant professor Corentin Fivet first cut the blocks into individual pieces on site and then assembled them into a prestressed arch.

The scientists say that their initiative could substantially shrink the construction industry’s carbon footprint by helping them to adopt a more ‘circular economy’ approach.

“People are hesitant to reuse concrete due to a variety of concerns,” says Fivet, who heads EPFL’s Structural Exploration Lab (SXL) within the Smart Living Lab. “But we wanted to show that those concerns are largely unfounded.”

“Blocks of concrete that are selected for reuse are just as reliable and useful as new blocks.”

According to postdoc Maléna Bastien Masse – who conducted the research with PhD graduate Jan Brütting, the scientists gave themselves two months to find a source building in the region and a demolition company that would be interested in working with them.

This led them to Swiss construction company Diamcoupe, which had been commissioned to renovate a building erected less than 10 years ago.

“We asked Diamcoupe to cut the concrete into the sizes we needed and to drill holes through them for our prestressing cables,” says Bastien Masse. “These cables were provided by Freyssinet and used to build the arch.”

Thanks to this initiative, the engineers were able to obtain 20cm-thick concrete blocks for the footbridge.

They then added mortar in places to smooth out the slight differences in dimensions, which are inevitable anytime objects are reused.

According to Fivet, most buildings in Switzerland are made out of concrete, and producing this raw material accounts for 7% of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic activity.

What’s more, concrete makes up 50% of demolition waste. When the material reaches its end of life, it’s at best broken down into gravel or granulate to create recycled forms – but that consumes a lot of energy.

“If we were instead to cut up concrete blocks and reuse them, we could both prevent the need to produce more concrete and eliminate the inert waste,” opines Fivet.

“No other new concrete footbridge has a carbon footprint as small as ours.”

“Imagine if every obsolete concrete structure out there was cut into blocks and used to meet some of the global demand for new concrete. That would be a big step towards addressing some of the most pressing climate-change challenges.”

Image and content: EPFL

Share on

Filed Under: Innovation

A Mining Waste Devouring Bacteria
Treating UK’s Nuclear Waste Burden
Avatar

About Aruna Urs

Aruna is an industrial journalist. He writes on innovations that emanate at the intersection of science and engineering having a profound impact on the manufacturing sector.

Follow me
Suppliers

Better for Business and the Environment

Maximize efficiency, lower energy costs, and participate in demand response and energy market programs for added monetization with new distributed energy management technology, as part of Caterpillar’s new Energy as a Service (EaaS) capabilities. Automatically dispatch onsite assets for power generation and storage during peak demand times.
View Supplier Email this Supplier

Large Pumping of Condensable Gases with New Multi-Stage Roots Pumps

The pumps are designed for oil- and particle free applications in the pressure range between atmosphere up to 3x10-2 hPa. With their built-in intelligence it allows high pumping speed at high pressure. The pumps from Pfeiffer Vacuum meet the requirements where clean and dry vacuum is needed like drying, sterilization, coating as well as semiconductor and R&D applications.
View Supplier Email this Supplier

Affordable and Fixed Installed IR Cameras

Our thermal imaging cameras with multiple wavelength options, automatic spot finder function and autonomous operation are ideal for condition monitoring of machines and plants. With Optris thermal imagers, temperature distributions on surfaces can be captured precisely within a millisecond interval.
View Supplier Email this Supplier

Subscribe

Get the latest WIR reports straight to your inbox.

Free Newsletter Subscription

Find us on the social web.

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Terms Of Use
  • Privacy Policy
FREE NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION

Get the latest WIR reports straight to your inbox.

  • Innovation Article Archive
  • Innovation Strategies
  • Innovative Companies
  • New Products
  • Additive Manufacturing
  • Market Trends
  • Tradeshow Reports
  • White Papers
  • Logistics
  • Newsletters
  • Fun Stuff
  • Industry Links
Follow us

© 2023 Thomas Publishing Company. All rights reserved.