Developing a methodological framework of adopting digital twin for deconstruction planning

Wastes generated from construction and demolition (C&D) activities account for a major proportion of urban solid wastes. The large amount of C&D waste gen-erated are still being largely landfilled or downcycled worldwide. Aging built as-sets without proper C&D planning is a major cause of wastes not being efficient-ly diverted for circular use. How waste sorting could be properly planned in the early stages, not only for new construction, but also deconstruction projects is critical to minimizing C&D wastes. As there is a large amount of aging assets without digital files or even no drawings, developing a digital-driven approach to effectively estimate and categorize C&D wastes would be essential for, not just early-stage deconstruction planning, but also the development of a circular econ-omy on C&D wastes. This study is first based on a thorough literature review of existing studies of applications of digital technologies to C&D waste diversion (WD). Limitations of existing studies are evaluated, such as the lack of digital twin approach for deconstruction. Then a methodological framework is estab-lished aiming to adopt digitalization for C&D WD, specifically for existing facili-ties under deconstruction planning. Based on the current work, future study would ap-ply the methodological framework with real-world case studies to vali-date and test its effectiveness with initiated prototypes. Longer-term work can ex-tend from the current framework to Internet-of-Things and Artificial Intelligence.