Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a basis for handling digital information to optimize material cycles in the construction industry

Funded by: DBU - German Federal Environmental Foundation

Project duration: 01/2017 to 12/2018

Closing material cycles in the construction sector usually fails due to building products that cannot be recycled or can only be recycled with great effort. In addition to the lack of information on the fate of the respective products at the end of a building's useful life, this is due to the increasing variety of construction products used in the building construction sector. Many construction products have defined properties that predestine them for use in buildings, depending on their area of application and purpose, but also lead to an ever-increasing heterogeneity of construction waste.

The aim of the research project is not only to optimize recycling but also to increase the ease of repair in the event of damage or renovation in order to be able to return as many materials as possible to the raw material cycle. Furthermore, the extensive and early recording and storage of product- and substance-related information (e.g. with regard to hazardous substances) on the installed materials and their assignment to the installation location in digital building data models during maintenance or repair during the operating phase as well as during dismantling should ensure that occupational health and safety and environmental protection concerns are taken into account much better than before.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned goal, it is necessary to analyze, record and document relevant processes and material and product-related data. For this purpose, two different life cycles are considered from the perspective of the building materials, the life cycle of the building material itself (Fig. 1) and the life cycle of the building (Fig. 2). The life cycle of the building material is divided into the phases "production, processing, dismantling and treatment or disposal". In contrast, the life cycle of the building is divided into the phases of "development, planning, realization, operation and demolition". In this research project, the focus is on the "realization and demolition" phases, which are important for building materials. Demolition is understood here both in the sense of the overall dismantling of a building and as a sub-process within the framework of a maintenance measure.

By considering both life cycles from a process perspective with a focus on information flows, all relevant information on the most important construction and mass building materials is to be analyzed and documented. This research project looks specifically at steel, construction metals, mineral building materials (concrete, masonry, plaster), dry construction materials, adhesives, carpets and interior paints. By superimposing the processes from the different phases of the two life cycles, the resulting requirements for a necessary data profile for building materials are worked out.

With regard to the origin of the material-related data, a distinction is made between projects in which the building product data can be collected during construction - and in some cases must be collected as part of quality assurance during construction - and refurbishment or conversion measures in existing buildings, in which the existing materials are often assessed by visual inspection and sampling. In these cases, only existing, generally accessible databases can usually be used for building material-related data. Both process variants are to be investigated and presented in this project.

In this context, the BIM method is considered by pursuing an integration of the analyzed data with the building data model. In order to achieve a timely and practical implementation and application of the research results, an expandable software application "RecycBIM" will be developed. The software application will be tested and validated by the practice partners on real construction sites.