Progress and prospect on demolition technology of masonry structures

Large amounts of existing masonry structures in urban construction intensive areas of China are faced with severe demands for demolition and reconstruction. Traditional demolition methods such as manual demolition, semi-manual demolition, and semi-mechanical demolition have problems of low demolition efficiency, high noise, heavy dust, and difficult recycling of demolition materials. Typical modern technologies (e.g., blasting demolition) are very dangerous and can easily produce huge noise and dust pollution to the surrounding environment. Demolition materials produced solely by traditional and modern demolition technologies are usually directly buried and difficult to be recycled. Therefore, green demolition methods and technologies of masonry structures should be developed to achieve low noise, low dust, and high recycling rate of demolition waste. In this study, five types of demolition techniques domestic and abroad were compared and analyzed, including manual demolition, crushing hammer, crushing ball, hydraulic scissors, and blasting method. The working principles, technical advantages, and application range of the techniques were summarized. The idea and method of dismantling masonry structure of wall cutting, lifting, transportation, and reassembling were proposed, which could provide support for demolishing and reusing masonry structures with high value. © 2019, Editorial Board of Journal of Harbin Institute of Technology. All right reserved.