ProjectRECOMPOSE
Paving the way for recycled concrete in European construction
Resource Efficient Steel - Recycled Aggregate Concrete Composite Floor Systems (RECOMPOSE)
“RECOMPOSE shows that yesterday’s concrete can safely become tomorrow’s structure, turning demolition waste -secondary material - into a reliable resource for Europe’s circular construction future.” - Dr. Qiuni Fu
Project impact
How can we make Europe’s construction sector more energy efficient, given that concrete production is one of the biggest sources of industrial CO2 emissions? The ubiquitous building material is a big waste product in both construction and demolition. While used-up concrete can be reformulated into a new material called recycled aggregate concrete (RAC), this concrete has different properties to conventional concrete. It can have additional weak interfaces and higher porosity, which means it can absorb more water and may have lower strength and durability. As a result, it is mostly used in non-structural construction such as pavement. New buildings still mostly rely on using conventional concrete as it needs to carry higher loads. In the RECOMPOSE project, Dr. Qiuni Fu and supervisor Prof. Markus Schäfer looked into ways to change that. They proposed using RAC structurally, as part of steel-concrete composite floors. For the first time, the pair revealed the load-bearing performance of connectors in such floors, laying the path for further research on this topic and helping build a circular economy in Europe’s building sector.
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Coordinator
Luxembourg
Université du Luxembourg
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Participating and partners countries