Abstract The reuse of load‐bearing reinforced concrete elements represents a promising approach to reducing CO 2 emissions and resource consumption in the construction industry. This paper presents the holistic process of modular reuse, ranging from the identification of suitable donor structures through element extraction and characterization to the assembly of new load‐bearing structures. Attention is paid to the development of systematic methods for element identification using Scan‐to‐BIM, as well as to the evaluation of different separation methods in terms of their impact on element quality. Experimental investigations combine non‐destructive and semi‐destructive testing methods to determine material properties and structural integrity. The results show that, although selective demolition methods require greater effort, they contribute significantly to the preservation of element quality. In addition, a digital element catalogue with a semantic data structure is presented, which enables consistent documentation and further processing of element information. The approaches developed are validated in full‐scale demonstration projects and contribute to the establishment of circular construction methods.
Zielonka et al. (Thu,) studied this question.