Today, many reinforced concrete structure, most of the time with no or small structural disturbances, are demolished for socio-economic reasons. When the preservation of an existing building is not possible, reusing the structural component in a new project is a strategy that allows the diminution of the detrimental environment impacts of deconstruction and new construction. The components of the obsolete building are carefully dismantled without being crushed. They are cleaned, possibly repaired or trimmed and reused while maintaining as much as possible their pre-existing geometry and properties. Adopting this alternative strategy implies changes in the design processes of the demolition and new construction projects. As a starting point, the obsolete existing structure must be inventoried and assessed to define the mechanical and geometrical properties as well as the durability of its reinforced concrete components and to evaluate their reusability. The present document describes a reusability assessment method and a resource assessment protocol for a soon-to-be deconstructed RC structure. To help the designers evaluate the different reuse options for a component, a reusability assessment tool is first presented. It is based on the pre-existing damages of the component, its future use and the intervention required to rehabilitate the components. The damage assessment is conducted before the deconstruction of the donor building. The use class – expressing the structural demand for the component – and the intervention class – describing maintenance and modifications on the component – depend on the design of the receiver building. Once the damage, use and intervention of a component have been classified, the reusability grade is obtained, expressing recommendation for the reuse and the related monitoring in the receiver structure. This reusability assessment tool is intended to reduce the subjectivity of the assessment of reuse potential of RC components. This report then describes the steps to carry out the complete resource assessment of reinforced concrete structures and their components. The resource assessment collects all information needed to evaluate and plan the future reuse of the components: classification and quantification of the components, grading of their pre-existing damages, investigations on their geometrical and material properties and evaluation of their qualities (aesthetics, accessibility, resistance, environmental impact). This systematic methodology aims at reducing the subjectivity of such an assessment. The methods and protocols described herein allow planning the deconstruction of an obsolete RC structure using methods that will subsequently facilitate the reuse of the components with the most potential. They also give the information for preliminary designs of a receiver structure. In later design stages, additional investigations on the stock might be required.

See also German version. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7457954