Babette van Schaik
Management in the Built Environment
Digital twin as circularity enabler of façades in maintenance - A research into how a digital twin can facilitate the circularity maintenance of façades
Maintenance plays a vital part in the Circular Economy (CE). Repairing, upgrading and restoring façades extend their lifecycle and reduces waste. The European Union and Dutch government have set goals to reach a circular future: in 2050 the built environment must be 100% circular. However, this demands a tremendous change in the current maintenance system. Façades are often maintained for the service life of only 50 years. Therefore, the quality at end-of-life is usually low. Additionally, due to issues in information capture and management, the condition at end-of-life is also challenging to determine. Therefore, façades are discarded as waste, sometimes way before they are at their actual end-of-life. Furthermore, to increase the circular potential of façades, the existing maintenance system requires change. In this research, an investigation is done into how the current maintenance system can be facilitated towards circular maintenance utilising digital technologies.