ABSTRACT
The demands on our existing transportation infrastructure are growing as our cities increase in size. We are constantly faced with the need of increasing the capacity of our existing networks. So do we rebuild or refurbish? We live in a world of finite resource and the idea of simply knocking something down and rebuilding it afresh is counter-intuitive to a society that seeks sustainable solutions. So how do we assess the sustainable benefit of refurbishing an existing structure?
There are several tools recently developed to measure the extent of embedded carbon in new projects that help us compare the sustainability of new construction and determine the most effective scheme. However, the same tools cannot be used to assess the relative sustainability of refurbishment versus replacement and yet decisions on this critical point are having to be met by bridge owners worldwide.
