PDEng in developing LCA and LCC models to support the sustainable valorization of building CDW in road pavement infrastructure

The PDEng is a 2-year post-master's degree, technological designers programme. This programme at the University of Twente contains an educational part and a design project. For the project, you will work with TNO. The educational programme will have an in-depth character with ample attention for professional development and will be partly tailored to the design project. Together with the external organisation, you will develop a high-level and creative solution for the given problem.

The Netherlands is widely recognized as a frontrunner in CDW recycling. However, the majority of the CDW is used as a road base material or as filler material to raise the level of industrial estates. Recycling in such low-value applications is called downcycling and consists of using recycled material for an application of less value than the original purpose of the material. Given the current context where Rijkswaterstaat is moving from the construction of new transportation infrastructure to the maintenance and rehabilitation of the existing ones, the market for downgraded recycled materials is expected to achieve a saturation point.

Using CDW materials in bounded layers of road pavement infrastructure is a promising alternative to downcycling that multiple recent research efforts have proved to be technically possible. However, the extent to which such alternative recycling routes are environmentally and economically beneficial remains unknown.

This project aims to tighten the links between building and road transportation infrastructure sectors through the development of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) models to quantify the environmental impacts and costs associated with the use of building CDW materials in bounded layers of road pavement infrastructure.

ACTIVITIES
Characterization (i.e., quantity, quality, composition and availability) of the CDW associated with the Dutch building sector
Identification of alternative technical applications of recycled building CDW materials in road pavement infrastructure
Identification of the key stakeholders influencing the use of recycled materials in road pavement infrastructure
Quantification of the demand for raw materials in road pavement infrastructure that can be replaced by recycled building CDW materials
Identification of the processes involved in the different building CDW recycling strategies
Development of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to model to quantify the environmental impacts associated with the valorisation of building CDW in road pavement infrastructure
Development of a Life Cycle Costs (LCC) model to quantify the costs associated with the valorisation of building CDW in road pavement infrastructure