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The building sector's significant greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption present added challenges to meeting European climate commitments amidst rapid population growth. In Luxembourg, single-family houses dominate the residential buildings, noticeably contributing to construction waste and CO2 emissions. This study compares the environmental impacts of a three-story reinforced concrete masonry single-family house and an identical timber building in Luxembourg, emphasizing greenhouse gas emissions and embodied energy. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment was conducted using Building Information Modelling (BIM) models to analyze the global warming potential and primary energy requirements. Environmental product declarations from the producers and the ÖKOBAUDAT German database were used to determine the environmental impacts of the materials. The results show that the timber building outperforms the concrete building with a 43.5% lower global warming potential, while the concrete building demonstrates a 15.6% reduction in primary energy demand. This aligns with the average outcomes of seven similar studies discussed in this paper, at 33.2% and 4.7%, respectively. Moreover, the timber building is 78.6% lighter than the concrete one. When evaluating benefits and loads beyond the system boundary, the timber building provides 3.6 and 4 times greater advantages in terms of global warming potential and primary energy, respectively, compared to the reinforced concrete masonry building. Additionally, the study explores the impact of reusing the floors in the timber building. The cradle-to-grave LCA reveals that reusing the timber slabs improves the building's global warming potential and primary energy by 2.4% and 1.2%, respectively. However, when considering the benefits and loads beyond the system boundary, floor system reuse exhibits a 38.9% surge in global warming advantages while reducing primary energy benefits by 28.1%. The findings advocate for a policy promoting timber construction and reuse in Luxembourg, aiming to achieve the net-zero emission target by 2050.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in timber–concrete composite (TCC) floors as a sustainable structural solution. Until now, only a few studies have investigated the demounting of TCC floors, which is essential to increase sustainability and improve the end-of-life environmental benefits of a floor system. This study investigates an innovative and straightforward demountable TCC slab that has notched and bolted connections. Six downscaled slabs are tested under four-point bending. The results show that the slab system has high composite action with an efficiency of 0.73. A three-dimensional finite element model is developed and calibrated with the experimental result. The model is used to study the influence of several parameters, such as the shape and dimensions of the notch as well as the bolt location on the load-bearing capacity and the load-deflection behavior of the slab. The results show that the failure tends to be more ductile when a birdsmouth-shaped notch is used, and the bolt is placed within the notch. Moreover, the load-bearing capacity of the shear connection increases by increasing the distance of the notch to the end of the slab and using a triangular notch.

– Good insulation materials have low thermal conductivity which is mainly related with the density of the material. Bio-composite insulation materials contribute to reduce the environmental footprint of buildings. The main goal of this study is to study the effectiveness of a self-growing, bio-composite building insulation material made of Miscanthus x giganteus and the mushroom Mycelium. Different mix proportions of Miscanthus and Mycelium were considered to identify the most suitable mixture to produce a porous composite which has a lower density. Scanning electron microscopy images were used to evaluate the microstructural geometry of the composite material. Thermal conductivity test was conducted on eight composite plates, and the results showed that the thermal conductivity of this new material is between 0.0882 and 0.104 Wm−1K−1. Moreover, other experiments were carried out to characterize the density, compressive strength and water absorption. In addition, fire resistant tests on composite plates with and without render were conducted, and it was found that the composite plates belong to the category EI15 according to the EN13501–2:2003. The initial results were found to be satisfactory to make a sustainable insulation material out of Miscanthus and Mycelium.

Abstract Background As several new tibial osteotomy plates recently appeared on the market, the aim of the present study was to compare mechanical static and fatigue strength of three newly designed plates with gold standard plates for the treatment of medial knee joint osteoarthritis. Methods Sixteen fourth‐generation tibial bone composites underwent a medial open‐wedge high tibial osteotomy (HTO) according to standard techniques, using five TomoFix standard plates, five PEEKPower plates and six iBalance implants. Static compression load to failure and load‐controlled cyclic fatigue failure tests were performed. Forces, horizontal and vertical displacements were measured; rotational permanent plastic deformations, maximal displacement ranges in the hysteresis loops of the cyclic loading responses and dynamic stiffness were determined. Results Static compression load to failure tests revealed that all plates showed sufficient stability up to 2400 N without any signs of opposite cortex fracture, which occurred above this load in all constructs at different load levels. During the fatigue failure tests, screw breakage in the iBalance group and opposite cortex fractures in all constructs occurred only under physiological loading conditions (