Automating Construction Material Sourcing and Distribution for Circularity

Abstract

Circularity in the construction industry is developing, with increasing emphasis on extracting resources from existing infrastructure. Given the growing amount of resources embedded in the current housing stock, sustainability within the industry is critical. To support the large-scale reuse of Reclaimed Construction Materials (RCMs), through active reuse strategies, it is essential to develop tools and frameworks for sourcing RCMs. This study contributes to that effort by providing insights into the creation of such frameworks and emphasizing the value of material reuse within the construction sector. Although material reuse is considered an excellent circular strategy, the application of reuse across the industry still faces technical, social, and environmental limitations. A significant drawback of material reuse is the complexity of finding RCMs that fit a design with limited alterations required for use. Furthermore, the environmental and economic cost of acquiring and reusing RCMs is taxing, compared to acquiring New Construction Materials (NCMs). Additionally, there is limited insight into other options for restoring existing building resources before replacement. Therefore, this thesis develops decision support frameworks for component level assessment of RCMs and assembly level assessment of RCMs. The component level assessment tool is designed to integrate 3D scanning, Optimization Programming Languages (OPL), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools to create an enhanced digital supply sourcing system; whereby RCMs at secondary sources can be found with basic required information like; cost, proximity and dimensions to enable planning and implementation. The component-level assessment framework is refined and extended through a policy assessment study, demonstrating its adaptability to diverse challenges presenting both risks and potential benefits for policy implementation. This thesis is fundamentally based on real-world data gathered from RCM stores and it challenges the current ongoing building design practices that deem material reuse as a problematic approach by enabling flexible sourcing of used and new building materials and providing an assessment framework for selecting appropriate restoration strategies. The approach alters the social perspective to consider partial integration of RCMs at varying levels of integration in new building projects.