A significant contribution of the construction industry to the climate change mitigation while simultaneously fulfilling society’s construction demand can only be achieved through the realization of circular eternity and the related holistic consideration of reuse and recycling. Although recycling of construction materials can reduce the carbon footprint of a structure, it still requires additive energy, and at least minor emissions must be accepted. Thus, recycling alone will not be adequate for becoming climate-neutral; structural reuse is essential, meaning that components are reused in their entirety. However, structural reuse is still ambitious and currently limited to building structures without fatigue loading.

The vision of REBRIDGE is to reuse components from existing bridges in new bridges and/or building structures, thereby developing a circular eternity as a novel concept in construction. The project aims to establish methods for a reliable design of bridges' reclaimed components, considering in-situ assessments, uncertainties from fuzzy loading histories, damage from use and deconstruction and the impact of any repair and improvement measures. Concepts and rules for the design of reclaimed components of existing bridge structures for reuse will be developed.

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