Publications related to Nature, Science, and Enterprise: The Origins of the Success of Reinforced Concrete in Switzerland. The Introduction, Diffusion, and Supersedence of the Hennebique System

FLO:RE – A new floor system made of reused reinforced concrete and steel elements

Maléna Bastien Masse, Numa Joy Bertola, Célia Marine Küpfer, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

Carefully extracting reinforced concrete (RC) elements from soon-to-be demolished structures and reusing them as load-bearing components is an emerging circular low-carbon alternative to building new structures. As floor construction typically accounts for ...

IABSE2024

Rising from rubble - Leveraging existing construction tools for upcycling concrete waste into slender walls

Katrin Beyer, Maxence Grangeot, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Qianqing Wang, Stefana Parascho

In this paper, we present a new method for upcycling concrete rubble waste into slender walls through the lightweight digital augmentation of mainstream construction machines. By using such method, the environmental impact of concrete construction and demo ...

Springer2024

A concrete answer for circular construction: three prototypes reusing saw-cut elements

Maléna Bastien Masse, Célia Marine Küpfer, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

Existing concrete buildings should be retained for as long as possible to reduce the environmental burden of demolition and new construction. However, when urban pressure makes demolition unavoidable, salvaging and reusing concrete elements elsewhere in ne ...

2024

Reuse of cut concrete slabs in new buildings for circular ultra-low-carbon floor designs

Numa Joy Bertola, Célia Marine Küpfer, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

The study explores an original idea that responds to the urgent need to reduce the detrimental environmental impacts of load-bearing floor construction in new buildings by reusing saw-cut reinforced concrete (RC) pieces salvaged from soon-to-be demolished ...

2024

Contributions to rebar-to-concrete interaction and its structural implications for design and monitoring applications

Enrique Corres Sojo

Bond between reinforcing bars and concrete has been the focus of extensive research over the last century. This is well-justified as the functioning of reinforced concrete intimately depends on the interaction between rebar and concrete, as for example cra ...

EPFL2024

Reusability assessment of reinforced concrete components prior to deconstruction from obsolete buildings

Maléna Bastien Masse, Julie Rachel Devènes, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

A large part of building demolitions is motivated by purely socio-economic reasons. Hence, about-to-be-demolished structures, commonly made of reinforced concrete, very often present no or little degradation. When adaptive reuse of the entire building is n ...

2024

Experimental and analytical investigation of shear-reinforced concrete and dowel action

Marko Pejatovic

Codes of practice can be overly conservative, particularly for the shear resistance of reinforced concrete beams with shear reinforcement when large loads act close to supports. This thesis addresses the topic by proposing a refined design approach based o ...

EPFL2024

Structural component reuse of precast and cast-in-place reinforced concrete in architecture since the late 1960s in Europe

Célia Marine Küpfer, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

The reuse of concrete pieces salvaged from structures undergoing transformation or demolition into new architectural projects has gained a sudden and visible interest over the past five years. However, the practice of reusing concrete pieces in new structu ...

vdf Hochschulverlag AG2024

Teaching Not To

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes

Two design studios were successively taught in two schools of architecture: one at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the other at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, based on "A Global Morato ...

Taylor & Francis Inc2024

Influence of model uncertainty and long term deformations in action effects calculation in reinforced concrete structures

Xhemsi Malja

Most codes of practice adopt a semi probabilistic design approach for the dimensioning and assessment of structures. Accordingly, structural safety is ensured by performing limit state verifications using design values determined with adequately calibrated ...

EPFL2024

Experimental investigation of dowel action in reinforcing bars using refined measurements

Aurelio Muttoni, Marko Pejatovic

In typical reinforced concrete design, reinforcement is designed to carry axial forces, but it can also resist transversal forces by dowel action. This is usually neglected for simplicity's sake in the design phase, but it can be accounted for either expli ...

Ernst & Sohn2024

Estimation of the bar stress based on crack width measurements in reinforced concrete structures

Aurelio Muttoni, Enrique Corres Sojo

Estimating the stress of reinforcing bars and its variations in service conditions can be useful to determine the reserve capacity of structures or to assess the risk of fatigue in the reinforcement. This paper investigates the use crack width measurements ...

Ernst & Sohn2024

Decarbonization potential of steel fibre-reinforced limestone calcined clay cement concrete one-way slabs

Hisham Tarek Mohamed Hafez

This study deals with a comparison of the environmental performance of one-way slabs utilizing steel fibrereinforced limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) concrete with the control case of Ordinary Portland cement concrete. The experimental program constitu ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Additively manufactured steel reinforcement for small scale reinforced concrete modeling: Tensile and bond behavior

Christian Leinenbach, Rafal Wróbel

Small scale (1:30-1:40) Reinforced Concrete is useful for centrifuge testing. However, manufacturing the reinforcing cages by hand at this scale is practically difficult. This paper suggests that small scale reinforcement can be manufactured using a metal ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Shear and steel-fibre reinforcement for the punching resistance of flat slabs at internal and edge columns

Diego Hernández Fraile

Reinforced concrete flat slabs consist of a continuous, thin concrete plate that rests on a grid of columns. The supporting surface of the columns is very small compared to the floor plan dimensions, leading to concentrations of shear forces near the colum ...

EPFL2024

Mesh-based topology, shape and sizing optimization of ribbed plates

In this paper, we present a new parameterization and optimization procedure for minimizing the weight of ribbed plates. The primary goal is to reduce embodied CO2 in concrete floors as part of the effort to diminish the carbon footprint of the construction ...

Springer2024

Model uncertainties in action effects and load bearing capacity calculation in statically indeterminate reinforced concrete structures

Alain Nussbaumer, Aurelio Muttoni, Xhemsi Malja

For the dimensioning and assessment of structures, it is common practice to compare action effects with sectional resistances. Extensive studies have been performed to quantify the model uncertainty on the resistance side. However, for statically indetermi ...

Ernst & Sohn2024

Engineering novel protein interactions with therapeutic potential using deep learning-guided surface design

Anthony Marchand

Proteins are foundational biomolecules of life playing a crucial role in a myriad of biological processes. Their function often requires interplay with other biomolecules, including proteins themselves. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for ...

EPFL2024

The time-domain Cartesian multipole expansion of electromagnetic fields

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein, Nicolas Mora Parra, Elias Per Joachim Le Boudec, Emanuela Radici, Chaouki Kasmi

Time-domain solutions of Maxwell’s equations in homogeneous and isotropic media are paramount to studying transient or broadband phenomena. However, analytical solutions are generally unavailable for practical applications, while numerical solutions are co ...

Nature Publishing Group2024

Low-tech methods for the reuse of reinforced concrete structural elements

Maléna Bastien Masse, Julie Rachel Devènes, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Nicole Widmer

Most of existing buildings are made of concrete, new buildings are being built with it and others are demolished when still in good structural condition. This drives increased demands for raw materials, greenhouse gas emissions, and an accumulation of demo ...

2023