Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This program focuses on addressing the pressing issue of construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) waste in Canada, which constitutes a substantial portion of the country's total waste stream. The proposal highlights the urgency of transitioning to a circular economy in the construction sector and aims to use digitalization to support end-of-life (EOL) decision-making for the built environment. Canada's CRD waste accounts for a substantial portion of its total waste stream, emphasizing the need for a transition to a circular economy. The Canadian construction industry aims to shift from demolition and landfilling to deconstruction and material recovery. However, deconstruction faces challenges such as being labor-intensive, costly, lengthy, uncertain, and complex, compared to demolition. Recent literature has highlighted the positive role that BIM (Building Information Modeling) can have in enhancing circularity at various phases of a facility's lifecycle. Furthermore, the need for digital twin standards and solutions to specifically support EOL decision-making has been widely discussed. Digital twins, as digital replicas of buildings and infrastructure, linked with their physical counterparts can offer significant help for planning deconstruction and managing CRD waste. The proposed Discovery program seeks to leverage digital twins and advanced machine learning technologies to improve deconstruction practices, reduce waste, and advance the construction industry towards a circular economy. The program has three main research objectives, including (i) assessing the capacity of a building or infrastructure for disassembly and recovery; (ii) creating digital twin tools for better deconstruction management; and (iii) evaluating deconstruction projects based on real-world economical and urban factors. Correspondingly, three projects will be defined including (i) the development of comprehensive assessment models for deconstructability and recoverability; (ii) creating digital twins for EOL decision-making; and (iii) comparing deconstruction projects under various socioeconomic and urban contexts. The significance and impact of the research program on the Canadian construction industry include its potential to reduce embodied carbon, divert waste from landfills, and contribute to a circular economy. The advancement of scientific knowledge will be through recruiting and training highly qualified personnel (HQP) including 3 PhD, 4 MASc, and 4 undergraduate research assistants, based on the EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Accessibility) principles, to complete the research tasks identified by the proposal.