scholarly journals Life Cycle Economic and Environmental Impacts of CDW Recycled Aggregates in Roadway Construction and Rehabilitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8611
Author(s):  
Yunpeng Zhao ◽  
Dimitrios Goulias ◽  
Luca Tefa ◽  
Marco Bassani

The use of recycled materials in roadway construction and rehabilitation can achieve significant benefits in saving natural resources, reducing energy, greenhouse gas emissions and costs. Construction and demolition waste (CDW) recycled aggregate as an alternative to natural one can enhance sustainability benefits in roadway infrastructure. The objective of this study was to quantitatively assess the life cycle economic and environmental benefits when alternative stabilized-CDW aggregates are used in pavement construction. Comparative analysis was conducted on a pavement project representative of typical construction practices in northern Italy so as to quantify such benefits. The proposed alternative sustainable construction strategies considered CDW aggregates stabilized with both cement and cement kiln dust (CKD) for the base layer of the roadway. The life cycle assessment results indicate that using CDW aggregate stabilized with CKD results in considerable cost savings and environmental benefits due to (i) lower energy consumption and emissions generation during material processing and (ii) reduction in landfill disposal. The benefits illustrated in this analysis should encourage the wider adoption of stabilized CDW aggregate in roadway construction and rehabilitation. In terms of transferability, the analysis approach suggested in this study can be used to assess the economic and environmental benefits of these and other recycled materials in roadway infrastructure elsewhere.

Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2651
Author(s):  
Francisco Agrela ◽  
Francisco González-Gallardo ◽  
Julia Rosales ◽  
Javier Tavira ◽  
Jesús Ayuso ◽  
...  

The application of recycled aggregates (RA) from construction and demolition waste and crushed concrete blocks is a very important challenge for the coming years from the environmental point of view, in order to reduce the exploitation of natural resources. In Spain, the use of these recycled materials in the construction of road bases and sub-bases is growing significantly. However, presently, there are few studies focused on the properties and behavior of RA in civil works such as road sections or seaport platforms. In this work, two types of RA were studied and used in a complete real-scale application. Firstly, recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) were applied in the granular base layer under bituminous superficial layers, and secondly mixed recycled aggregates (MRA) which contain a mix of ceramic, asphalt, and concrete particles were applied in the granular subbase layer, under the base layer made with RCA. Both RA were applied in a port loading platform in Huelva, applying a 100% recycling rate. This civil engineering work complied with the technical requirements of the current Spanish legislation required for the use of conventional aggregates. The environmental benefits of this work have been very relevant, and it should encourage the application of MRA and RCA in civil engineering works such as port platforms in a much more extended way. This is the first and documented real-scale application of RA to completely build the base and sub-base of a platform in the Huelva Port, Spain, replacing 100% of natural aggregates with recycled ones.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 3867
Author(s):  
Cristina Oreto ◽  
Francesca Russo ◽  
Rosa Veropalumbo ◽  
Nunzio Viscione ◽  
Salvatore Antonio Biancardo ◽  
...  

The pursuit of sustainability in the field of road asphalt pavements calls for effective decision-making strategies, referring to both the technical and environmental sustainability of the solutions. This study aims to compare the life cycle impacts of several pavement solution alternatives involving, in the binder and base layers, some eco-designed, hot- and cold-produced asphalt mixtures made up of recycled aggregates in substitution for natural filler and commercial recycled polymer pellets for dry mixture modification. The first step focused on the technical and environmental compatibility assessment of the construction and demolition waste (CDW), jet grouting waste (JGW), fly ash (FA), and reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Then, three non-traditional mixtures were designed for the binder layer and three for the base layer and characterized in terms of the stiffness modulus. Asphalt pavement design allowed for the definition of the functional units of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which was applied to all of the pavement configurations under analysis in a “from cradle to grave” approach. The LCA results showed that the best performance was reached for the solutions involving a cold, in-place recycled mixture made up of RAP and JGW in the base layer, which lowered all the impact category indicators by 31% on average compared to those of the traditional pavement solution. Further considerations highlighted that the combination of a cold base layer with a hot asphalt mixture made up of CDW or FA in the binder layer also maximized the service life of the pavement solution, providing the best synergistic effect.


2016 ◽  
Vol 881 ◽  
pp. 346-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luzana Leite Brasileiro ◽  
Fátima Maria de Souza Pereira ◽  
Pablo de Abreu Vieira ◽  
José Milton Elias de Matos

Every year, there is a considerable increase in the exploitation of deposits to supply the market for aggregates. On the other hand, so does the production of solid waste from construction and demolition waste (CDW). In 2010 Brazil approved the PNRS (National Policy on Solid Waste), which sets out how the country should have their waste, encouraging recycling and sustainability. As an alternative to the above problem, this paper aims to investigate the feasibility of partial and total replacement of the asphalt concrete aggregates by recycled aggregates from CDW in order to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the operation of quarries and give an adequate final destination the residue produced by man in construction. Were carried out five (05) projects mixture of: the first (parameter of our research) used only natural aggregates (0% CDW) in the second, third and fourth replaced 25%, 50% and 75% respectively of natural aggregate by the recycled aggregate and the fifth and last, used only recycled aggregates (100% CDW). They carried out the characterization of the aggregates by means of physico-chemical and mechanical, analyzing them with reference based on specific standards paving. For mixtures, they calculated the volumetric parameters and performed mechanical tests of tensile strength and stability. The results indicate that the recycled aggregate, in a defined proportion, can replace the natural aggregate in the flexible pavements


Author(s):  
Sharifah Salwa Mohd Zuki ◽  
◽  
Shahiron Shahidan ◽  
Shivaraj Subramaniam ◽  
◽  
...  

This paper discussed the recycled aggregates produced from construction and demolition waste and their utilization in concrete construction. Along with a brief overview of the engineering properties of recycled aggregates, the paper also summarizes the effect and use of recycled aggregates on the properties of fresh and hardened concrete. The recycled aggregates were treated with epoxy resin to reduce the water absorptions with different percentages of resin such as 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Epoxy resin is widely used in recent years owing to the enhancing of mechanical and durability of the concrete. This research also showed, recycled aggregate concrete are close proximity to normal concrete in terms of split tensile strength, compression strength and wet density. The low usage of resin was obtained good strength concrete compared to high percentage contained treated aggregates due to low bonding between material.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9625
Author(s):  
Ambroise Lachat ◽  
Konstantinos Mantalovas ◽  
Tiffany Desbois ◽  
Oumaya Yazoghli-Marzouk ◽  
Anne-Sophie Colas ◽  
...  

The demolition of buildings, apart from being energy intensive and disruptive, inevitably produces construction and demolition waste (C&Dw). Unfortunately, even today, the majority of this waste ends up underexploited and not considered as valuable resources to be re-circulated into a closed/open loop process under the umbrella of circular economy (CE). Considering the amount of virgin aggregates needed in civil engineering applications, C&Dw can act as sustainable catalyst towards the preservation of natural resources and the shift towards a CE. This study completes current research by presenting a life cycle inventory compilation and life cycle assessment case study of two buildings in France. The quantification of the end-of-life environmental impacts of the two buildings and subsequently the environmental impacts of recycled aggregates production from C&Dw was realized using the framework of life cycle assessment (LCA). The results indicate that the transport of waste, its treatment, and especially asbestos’ treatment are the most impactful phases. For example, in the case study of the first building, transport and treatment of waste reached 35% of the total impact for global warming. Careful, proactive, and strategic treatment, geolocation, and transport planning is recommended for the involved stakeholders and decision makers in order to ensure minimal sustainability implications during the implementation of CE approaches for C&Dw.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9386
Author(s):  
Sajjad Pourkhorshidi ◽  
Cesare Sangiorgi ◽  
Daniele Torreggiani ◽  
Patrizia Tassinari

Pavements are an expensive part of transportation infrastructures, as their construction and maintenance require large amounts of resources and materials every year and all over the world. A sustainable solution for considering environmental concerns about roads and pavements, in general, is utilizing recycled materials for their construction. This has been shown to lower the carbon footprint of the construction sector and to result in natural resource conservation, in reduction of harmful emissions and in minimization of overall costs for pavement construction and maintenance. One of the main groups of recycled materials which has attracted much attention since the end of the last century is construction and demolition waste aggregates (CDW). This paper reviews the completed studies referring to the use of the construction and demolition waste aggregates in unbound layers of pavements and compare the in-hand results from various engineering assessments of these aggregates and mixes. A number of tests and evaluations are applied in order to enhance the required quality and durability of the pavements under given traffic volumes traffic loads and climate actions. Today, unbound recycled aggregates (RA) are mainly used in the lower layers, such as subgrade, capping, sub-base and base, but in rural roads they can be adopted also for bound layers, towards the surface of the structure and may be constituents of bound layers and of novel surfacing applications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (337) ◽  
pp. 210 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L.S. Ferreira ◽  
M. A.S. Anjos ◽  
E. F. Ledesma ◽  
J. E.S. Pereira ◽  
A. K.C. Nóbrega

This study investigated the physical-mechanical effects of cement-lime mortars containing recycled aggregate of construction and demolition waste (CDW). The natural aggregate (NA) was replaced by volume at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% by mixed recycled aggregate (MRA) obtained from the CDW crushing. Five types of mortars were prepared with a volumetric ratio of 1:1:6 (cement, lime and aggregate) and water/binder ratio based on the fixed consistency of 260 mm. The effects of MRA on fresh and hardened mortars’ properties were analyzed. The results were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA. MRA incorporation improved most of the physical-mechanical properties of mortars tested, except for hardened bulk density, water absorption and porosity. In the long-run, mechanical strengths significantly increased in all compositions, especially those with higher percentages of MRA. The results obtained showed that the use of MRA in masonry mortars is an alternative to reduce the generation of waste and consumption of natural resources.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 2893
Author(s):  
Kui Hu ◽  
Yujing Chen ◽  
Caihua Yu ◽  
Dong Xu ◽  
Shihao Cao ◽  
...  

Mixed recycled aggregates (MRA) from construction and demolition waste (CDW) with high-purity and environmental performance are required for highway construction application in base layer and precast concrete curbs. The main problematic constituents that reduce the quality level of the recycled aggregates applications are brick components, flaky particles, and attached mortar, which make up a large proportion of CDW in some countries. This paper studies the potential of brick separation technology based on shape characteristics in order to increase the recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) purity for MRA quality improvement. MRA after purification was also processed with surface treatment experiment by rotating in a cylinder to improve the shape characteristics and to remove the attached mortar. The purity, strength property, densities, water absorption ratio, shape index, and mortar removal ratio of MRA were studied before and after the use of the brick separation and surface treatment proposed in this study. Finally, the recycled aggregates upgradation solution was adopted in a stationary recycling plant designed for a length of 113 km highway construction. The properties of CDW mixed concrete for precast curbs manufacturing were conducted. The results indicate that problematic fractions (brick components, particle shape, and surface weakness) in the MRA were significantly reduced by using brick separation and surface treatment solution. Above all, it is very important that the proposed brick separation method was verified to be practically adopted in CDW recycling plant for highway base layer construction and concrete curbs manufacturing at a low cost.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Fernando A. N. Silva ◽  
João M. P. Q. Delgado ◽  
António C. Azevedo ◽  
António G. B. Lima ◽  
Castorina S. Vieira

This work aims to study the influence of using construction and demolition waste in the replacement of coarse and fine aggregate to produce recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). A moderate compressive strength concrete made with usual fine and coarse aggregate was used as a benchmark material. Compressive and split tensile tests were performed using 120 cylindrical concrete specimens with 150 mm diameter and 300 mm length. Four-point flexural tests in reinforced beams made with conventional concrete and RAC were performed. The results obtained showed that the use of recycled fine aggregates, in both percentages of substitution investigated—50% and 100%— did not generate any deleterious influence on the values of compressive strength and split tensile strength of the RACs produced. Tin fact, the mechanical strengths of RACs produced with recycled fine aggregate were equal or higher than those from the reference concrete. The same behavior was not observed, however, when the recycled coarse aggregate was used. For this case, decreases in concrete mechanical strengths were observed, especially in compressive strength, with values around 35% lower when compared to the reference concrete. Tensile mechanical tests results confirmed the excellent behavior of all RACs made with replacement of usual fine aggregates by recycled. Bending tests performed in reinforced RAC beams had as objective to evaluate the deformation profile of the beams. The obtained results showed that RAC beams with full replacement of usual fine aggregate by the recycled aggregates have presented little changes in the global behavior, an aspect that encourages its use.


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