Reliability of Reused Bridge Structures and the Impact on the Design for a Green and Circular Eternity

ongoing

The guiding framework for structural engineers to meet the UN's SDGs and the goal agreed under the Green Deal to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions in the EU to zero by 2050 while simultaneously expanding the stock of buildings and infrastructures can only be achieved by implementing the vision of the REBRIDGE project through an integral approach of circular eternity and the related holistic consideration of ReUSE and ReCYCLE. Recycling of all construction materials still requires additive energy, and at least minor emissions must be accepted. Recycling alone will not be adequate; structural reuse is essential. Structural reuse means that components are reused in their entirety. While recycling in the electric furnace already reduces the carbon footprint to a small fraction of the blast furnace route, reuse can reduce this balance to a marginal amount compared to virgin material extraction. However, reuse is still ambitious to apply and currently limited to building structures not subjected to fatigue loading. The vision of REBRIDGE is to reuse components from existing bridges in new bridge and building structure designs, thereby developing a fully circular eternity as a novel concept in construction. The project addresses the new challenges for the industry and aims to develop methods for a reliable design of bridges' reclaimed components, considering novel NDT methods for in-situ assessment as well as uncertainties from fuzzy loading histories, damage from use and deconstruction and impact of any repair and improvement measures. As an outcome, Eurocode-compliant rules for the design of reclaimed components of existing bridge structures for reuse will be obtained to realize the vision of realizing the vision of a circular eternity.