This report presents the results of the ADVANCE project, a RFCS Accompanying Measure that aims to develop and demonstrate circular economy solutions for steel and steel-based components in the construction sector. The project covers different aspects of reuse, such as design, testing, certification, business models, and sustainability assessment, and provides recommendations and best practices for policy makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers.
The report reviews the existing standards, guides, and technical specifications for the assessment and design of reused steel components and identifies the main barriers and challenges. It also showcases some innovative solutions and case studies of reusable steel and steel-based structures and dismountable connectors, and evaluates the environmental, economic, and social impacts of reuse and recycling of steel components using different methods and tools. Finally, the report analyses the existing and upcoming policies and regulations at the European and national levels that affect the circular economy of steel-based components and provides policy recommendations and proposals for new standards and guidelines to support the reuse and recycling of steel components.
Annex A of the report presents glossary of terms and definitions used in this report and in the ADVANCE project in general. Factsheets of the newly developed Case Studies of structural steel reuse are presented in Annex B.
This report presents the methodology to declare environmental benefits of reused elements in the scope of RFCS project ADVANCE “Accompanying measure for dissemination, valorisation and collaborative exploitation of circularity of constructional steel products”. Our goal is to clarify the calculation method used for Environmental Product Declarations according to EN 15804 + A2 and to analyse alternative metrics for the assessment of circularity of constructional steel products.
The European steel sector has played an important role in the development of LCA assessment methods and standards over many years. Life Cycle Inventory data published by steel industry is based on production of steel from iron ore and steel scrap. This inventory covers material mining and manufacture but also benefits and loads of recycling steel from products at the end of their life. Deconstruction and reuse offer alternative circular path to this well-established recycling process and in the case of steel, it will be always assessed together with scrap recycling, because almost all the material not suitable for reuse can be recycled. Several studies shown that a design approach featuring reused steel allows for considerable savings in energy and carbon reduction with respect to a new one.
In this report we describe a simple methodology to account reuse, in addition to recycling, in LCA calculations for constructional steel. The method is an extension of the Wordsteel Association’s methodology, and it is compatible with the CEN/TC 350 standards and PEF Circular Footprint Formula. We demonstrate this methodology in several calculation examples, where the different choices of recycling, reusing and disposal are selected. The method is suitable for individual projects such as buildings specifically designed to be reused. However, it can also highlight the benefits of product categories with substantial rate of reuse, for instance in the Environmental Product Declarations.
The report will cover the following issues:
• Lifecycle assessment methodology according to CEN/TC350 and CEN/TC135 standards for constructional steel products.
• Overview of possible circularity metrics to quantify the benefits of steel reuse.
This report provides a description of the mobile tool ‘Buildings LCA’ developed in the scope of the RFCS project SB STEEL and upgraded in the scope of ADVANCE project.
The original tool was freely available for smartphones and tablets and could be downloaded from the App Store or the Google Store. The updated version is also freely available for smartphones and tablets, and a new version is also available online. The implementation of ADVANCE LCA methodology was verified by VTT.
The main upgrades of the current tool are:
- Implementation of the LCA approach for the reuse of steel products (as described in Deliverable D4.1);
- Additional macro-components for industrial buildings;
- Development of the online tool, which additionally allows for the creation of BIM objects of the macro-components, including the environmental LCA data.
This report covers the first two updates, while the latter is covered in Deliverable D4.3.
This document provides a description of the Deliverable D4.3, the ‘Buildings LCA’ tool developed in the scope of the RFCS project SB STEEL, upgraded in the scope of ADVANCE project, and converted into the web application available at: https://buildingslca.onesource.pt.
This document summarises the presentation developed in the Work Package 5 of the ADVANCE project to be used in the workshops organized by the project partners in the Work Package 6.
The presentation is translated into Czech, Finnish, French, German, Portuguese and Romanian.
Each individual presentation is also available here.
All partners under the VTT’s coordination contributed to the development of the brochure in a collaborative way including the artwork and cover page.
The brochure is translated into Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish and Ukrainian.
This document lists the dissemination and communication activities of the project.
ADVANCE - List of dissemination activities
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Professor J.M. ROTTER was born in Chesterfield, England and graduated at Cambridge University when he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study in Australia. He got a PhD in civil engineering from the University of Sydney. His main specialty is the Buckling of Shells.
Jouko KOUHI is expert in Connections, welding, stability and fatigue of steel structures. He has been an active member of various ECCS Technical Committees since 1979, working on ENV 1993 part 1.8 from 1999 to 2002.
Frans BIJLAARD, Professor of steel structures at the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences at Delft University of Technology. His main specialties are on stability of steel structures, structural behaviour of joints in steel structures and design of greenhouses.
The involvement of Professor Jean Pierre MUZEAU in Education and his strong motivation in promoting the use of steel in construction over his career have to be underlined. He has been qualified as “Passeur de Connaissances” (Ndt : conveyor of knowledge) by the Members of the Jury who have underlined his prominent role among the young generations of civil engineers.
Prof. Joachim LINDNER got a 40-year academic career and extensive experience in civil engineering from lateral torsional buckling through contact splices, historical grey cast iron columns, fatigue behaviour, stability design of glass-beams, scaffolding design, crane girders, plate buckling problems, composite beams and columns, corrugated webs, connection problems and imperfection regulations. He signed around 220 publications.
Professor Reidar BJORHOVDE has an impressive academic background, including two Ph.D. in the area of Civil Engineering, and a remarkable professional career which includes several years as a Professor in various universities in North America. He also been the Director of Bjorhovde Group since 1998.
Professor Carlo URBANO has been active on ECCS committee “Stability of steel structures” since 1975. He has been also present on CEN, IABSE, SSRC committees. Graduated at the Politecnico di Milano in 1963, he dedicated his career to the “Strength of Materials”. He developed scientific research mainly on the general theory of elasticity, stability of elastic equilibrium, response to dynamics and elastoplastic vibrations, shell structures, solutions for steel and reinforced structures. Lately, he has focused his works on the elastic and elastoplastic stability of compressed simple or composed steel members in the presence of mechanical and geometrical imperfections and damages due to cyclic actions. He is the author of an incredible number of papers and publications.
Prof. Ing. Jean-Baptiste SCHLEICH will always be recognised as "Mr Fire” of Europe. He was the leading professor in the development of the "Natural Fire Safety Concept". Under his leadership, the relationship of the fire load to the risk to a structure and its occupants was researched and tested. It is due to his work that structures can now be fire engineered with a significant benefit to the industry, building owners and users.
Professor Manfred HIRT had been member of the various ECCS Technical Committees. He wrote more than 130 publications as author or co-author. Director of the Steel Structures Laboratory (ICOM) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL), Prof. Hirt was known on the international scene for his expertise in the field of fatigue and fracture mechanics of steel structures, loads and action on structures, structural safety and serviceability and steel-concrete composite construction. In August 2003, he had been elected President of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE).
Professor Giulio BALLIO was born in Rome, on 4 March 1940, and graduated in Aeronautical Engineering at the “Politecnico of Milan”, in 1963. He was Ordinario of the Science of Construction at Pavia University and, subsequently, of Construction in Steel at the Politecnico of Milan, where he has also been responsible, since 1985, for the Material Tests Laboratory.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard SEDLACEK, was a leading and opinion-forming person in various ECCS technical committees and subcommittees. He was one of the most active person in the European steel research sector as well as in the European codification field. His various activities covered a huge range beginning from intelligent design of steel and composite structures to researching, applying of research results, safety requirements, teaching and training of students and engineers, promotion and developing of steel structures and design tools for a better market share.
Professor Patrick DOWLING started his working life as an employee of BCSA and subsequently worked both in industry and academia. He was extensively involved with ECCS in plate buckling research and was Chairman of the CEN Eurocode 3 Committee.
When awarded, Professor Federico MAZZOLANI was Director of the “Institute of Technique of Construction” at the Engineering Faculty of Naples, Italy. Born in Milan, in 1938, and graduated in Civil Engineering at the University of Naples, Prof. Federico M. Mazzolani co-operated since 1970 with ECCS, assuming the responsibility of Committee chairmanship. His activity has been characterised by the issue of several fundamental documents, which played a leader role in the development of the European codification at the level of both national codes and Eurocodes.
Scientific Manager and Deputy General Manager of the French Technical and Industrial Centre of Steel Construction (CTICM), Professor Jacques BROZZETTI contributed highly to the development of the European Steel Construction. He had a long involvement with various research projects including stability problems, composite construction, fatigue and fire behaviour of steel structures. As a result, he had been involved with many Codes and design guides comprising writing activities. He worked with the profession to promote the steel construction on its various aspects.
Prof. Jan W.B. STARK, from the University of Delft, The Netherlands, had made substantial contributions to the construction industry in general, and more specifically with regard to steel and composite structures. For many years, he had been an active member of CEN and served ECCS in various committees. The Charles Massonnet Award was presented to him to express our gratitude for his high standard and valuable contribution to the steel construction industry.
Close collaborator of Professor Charles Massonnet, Professor René MAQUOI, was awarded in recognition of his efforts for the development of steel and composite construction. Indeed, Professor Massonnet was his “master” and conducted his first step in the ECCS activities.
Frantisek Wald concentrates on the connection and fire design of steel structures. He prepared the component model for column bases and the component based finite element model of joints. He works in ECCS Technical Committee 10 - Structural joints and in Project team for preparation of standard - EN 1993-1-8:2020.
