Digital measurements for effective recycling of building materials

We want to investigate tools and methods for how digital twins of buildings can be created and used, in order to reuse as large parts of existing buildings as possible in rebuilding or new construction projects.

The overarching purpose of the project is to further reuse of building parts and materials and thereby reduce the climate impact of the construction sector.

Through the use of digital measurement methods and visualization tools such as digital twins and BIM large amounts of resources in the form of materials and building parts can be salvaged and reused.The construction sector is the second largest waste producer in Sweden. Sweden generated 13 million tons of construction and demolition waste.

This amounts to 1.3 tons of waste per person and year.

A sustainable society will require that amount of waste to be drastically reduced through reuse of building materials and more circular material flows.

There is a lack of digital tools and methods for effectively identifying and mapping existing resources and materials in buildings that are to be demolished or rebuilt. Today, this is done mainly manually and on site.

The resulting lack of information and decision-making material means that the reuse of material often is not done to the extent that would be required.In order to implement the necessary industry-changing transition to a circular economy - which includes the recycling of building components on a large scale - it is necessary that existing resources such as building parts are made visible and made quantifiable.

The project´s goal is to identify which technical tools are currently lacking to increase the amount of recycled building materials and to develop methods and techniques for this.

Our consortium consists of partners with expertise from all parts of this process and our goal is to contribute with practical methods and knowledge.

Advances in digital measurement methods such as 3D scanning, photogrammetry and other ways of recording existing buildings and resources have developed rapidly in recent years.

The result is that the creation of a digital copy of interiors and exteriors is now within the financial frame of most remodeling projects.

At the same time, the use of BIM in planning, construction and construction has gained momentum and is now changing large parts of the construction process.

However, it is difficult to effectively connect these, individually, new tools.The scanned or otherwise digitized model of an existing building - in the form of a point cloud or a polygon model - lacks contextual information about what it actually contains.

BIM models, on the other hand, have the contextual information about what is there, but needs to be created through mainly manual labour.

From a sustainability perspective, therefore, much of the benefit of the digitalisation of buildings and building components is unfortunately lost. We want to investigate methods for connecting these tools.

By bridging the gap between "stupid" digital twins such as point clouds and more structured spatial models such as BIM, the benefits can become clearer.

In this project, we want to investigate how the enrichment of these digital twins can take place more effectively within the framework of a practical pilot.Despite sharp climate promises from the sector, there is currently a lack of tools and processes to achieve these goals. It is therefore in the industry´s interest to find more and new ways to achieve the goals set.

In addition to the large existing industry players, opportunities have opened up for new enterprises to develop services and solutions within digital tools for sustainability with a focus on reuse.Through good examples and a transparent process, this project will contribute to further advancing the industry´s position towards a climate-neutral Sweden.

Reuse is not just about reducing the climate impact. By extension, it is also about managing the earth´s natural resources and virgin resources. With reuse, fewer