A team of researchers from the University of Cagliari and Politecnico di Milano is transforming the remains of the core materials from disused buildings into material for new construction.

According to the team, this alternative to existing construction materials was developed through the Steel And Recycled Concrete Slab (SARCOS) project, wherein debris from demolished buildings is taken and turned into high-quality floor slabs that are equally as strong as standard ones.

Source: Politecnico di Milano

The team combined the recycled concrete with high-strength profiled steel sheeting to develop composite slabs.

When tested, the structural performance of these composite slabs stayed consistent even as recycled concrete content was increased from 30% to 100%.

“Concrete obtained from recycled material may offer lower performance than conventional concrete, also depending on how it is produced,” the team noted. “With our project, however, we demonstrated, through full-scale tests, that in composite slabs the performance remains unchanged or, in some cases, it actually increases,” the team explained.

Typically, the construction industry uses a particular type of sand that cannot be found in deserts. The team explained that desert sand tends to be too smooth and wind-blown to effectively bind concrete. Instead, the industry prefers the sharp, angular grains found in riverbeds and alluvial deposits.

“With our solution, it would therefore be possible to replace sand in construction, and to instead use rubble deriving from the demolition of ‘ecomostri,’ that is, environmentally damaging buildings,” the team concluded.

The study, “Finite element simulation of composite slabs with recycled concrete aggregates: collapse mechanisms and interface behaviour,” was published in the journal Materials and Structures.