Cement based materials have a very special presence amongst building and construction materials, and therefore their recycling is of capital importance. In this research, concrete wastes were used as replacement of natural aggregates in cement and cement-lime mortars. The mortars were cured for 28-days with an increasing substitution of fine natural aggregates with recycled aggregates and have been prepared as well as characterized. The results show that, as expected, cement mortars always have better mechanical properties than the corresponding cement-lime mortars. A worsening of mechanical properties is observed upon increasing the amount of recycled aggregates in the cement mortars; on the contrary, cement-lime mortars show an improvement in mechanical properties of up to 60% when increasing the amount of recycled aggregates. The experimental results suggest that this improvement could arise from a synergic effect of lime hydraulicity and the filler effect due to the fine fraction of recycled aggregates within the mix, that lead to better densification of the lime mortars by blocking the capillary pores

Nowadays, buildings renovation is a subject of special interest since the building and construction sector is the main body responsible for energy consumption and emissions. Hence, it is necessary to concentrate on refurbishment to achieve Europe’s climate neutrality by 2050 according to European Agenda goals. The BIM4EEB Project, a BIM-based fast toolkit for the efficient renovation of residential buildings, directs the attention toward developing an exhaustive toolkit based on Building Information Modeling (BIM) to be adopted in the renovation of existing residential buildings, to make the flow of information efficient, decreasing intervention working time while improving building performances, quality, and comfort for inhabitants. BIM4EEB is developing a BIM management system connected to an operational and multifunctional toolkit for various architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) stakeholders, integrating a set of tools for improving BIM adoption in renovation environments based on an interoperable flow of information. This paper presents the Horizon2020 Project and the framework used to develop the toolkit. In addition, the first outcomes of the toolkit development are outlined. The validation procedure in real environments has started to demonstrate the efficacy and applicability of the methodology and tools. Although the project is still in progress, benefits connected to the framework and the BIM-based toolkit result in an enhanced building renovation process.

Model checking of building information models is gaining interest for academic and industrial fields. However, several limitations can be identified in the practical application of model checking processes. One of the main limitations is the unavailability of detailed guidelines describing how these checks should be developed. The research presented in this paper focuses on the development of a check flow that can be applied to any type of building project answering to three main questions, namely what to check, when to perform the check, and who should perform the check. During the research a complete guide for checking activity has been developed identifying the subjects responsible for each specific check during the process. The proposed check list has been tested using a practical case study where the checks have been applied to a real model using commercially available checking tools. The results of the process have determined the need to streamline the proposed flow through a risk management analysis that allowed the definition of two other flows, optimized for achieving prefixed purposes. The research has been developed focusing on a specific phase of the construction process that is the detailed design authorization. Nevertheless, the results can be extended at different phases providing a good support both to clients and public administrations during the validation and authorization phase, and to the designers during the development of the project as an iterative checking process. The results presented in this work can pave the way for the integration of structured and standardized checking processes improving the overall quality of the construction process. This work has been developed and intersected with the activities of the H2020 BIM4EEB project considering the need to pave the way for the creation of quality models to facilitate the development of BIM based renovation processes.

Purpose: Quality failures in the design and construction process can entail significant delays and costs. Databases of building defects have proven to be useful for drawing conclusions on underlying causes of building defects and for identifying potential improvement actions to reduce the occurrence of building defects.Design/methodology/approach: The database comprising 27,074 cases from a Belgian insurance company was studied, and it was found that moisture problems account for 48% of all building defects, and stability problems 23%. To better analyse the geographical variability, the data were enriched with demographical, geographical and climatological factors of the municipality the concerned buildings were located in. This combined information was used to determine underlying external factors that impact the probability that specific types of building defects occur.Findings: The analysis of the data shows that external factors do indeed have a statistically significant impact. The factor with the highest impact is the number of walls the building has in common with its neighbours. The most significant climatological factor is the wind speed.Originality/value: A better understanding of the frequency of building defects and factors that contribute to the likelihood are important variables to consider in quality control and prevention.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) revolutionizes the construction industry by digitally simulating real-world entities through a defined and shared semantic structure. However, graphical information included in BIM models often contains more detailed data compared to the corresponding semantic or computable data. This inconsistency creates an asymmetry, where valuable details present in the graphical renderings are absent from the semantic description of the model. Such an issue limits the accuracy and comprehensiveness of BIM models, constraining their full utilization for efficient decision-making and collaboration in the construction process. To tackle this challenge, this paper presents a novel approach that utilizes Machine Learning (ML) to mediate the disparity between graphical and semantic information. The proposed methodology operates by automatically extracting relevant details from graphical information and transforming them into semantically meaningful and computable data. A comprehensive empirical evaluation shows that the presented approach effectively bridges the gap between graphical and computable information with an accuracy of over 80% on average, unlocking the potential for a more accurate representation of information within BIM models and enhancing decision-making and collaboration/utility in construction processes.

Since the buildings and construction sector is one of the main areas responsible for energy consumption and emissions, focusing on their refurbishment and promoting actions in this direction will be helpful to achieve an EU Agenda objective of making Europe climate-neutral by 2050. One step towards the renovation action is the exploitation of digital tools into a BIM framework. The scope of the research contained in this paper is to improve the management of information throughout the different stages of the renovation process, allowing an interoperable exchange of data among the involved stakeholders; the development of an innovative BIM-based toolkit is the answer to the research question. The research and results obtained related with the development of an interoperable BIM-based toolkit for efficient renovation in buildings in the framework of the European research project BIM4EEB. Specifically, the developed BIM management system allows the exchange of the data among the different tools, using open interoperable formats (as IFC) and linked data, in a Common Data Environment, to be used by the different stakeholders. Additionally, the developed tools allow the stakeholders to manage different stages of the renovation process, facilitating efficiencies in terms of time reduction and improving the resulting quality. The validity of each tool with respect to existing practices is demonstrated here, and the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed tools are described in the workflow detailing issues such as interoperability, collaboration, integration of different solutions, and time consuming existing survey processes.