Assessment of Multi-Scale Performance Modelling of Plastic Recycled Bricks

Plastic recycle bricks (PBS) is a product of the mixture of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) waste with sand fillers. This brick offers a viable solution to massive environmental, economic and social challenges emanating from accumulation of plastic waste, particularly in developing and rapid urbanizing areas where generation of plastic waste is on the rise. Instead of sending them to landfills this effort advances circular economy by turning plastic waste into high performance building materials. Plastic recycle bricks (PBS) is heterogenous in nature with complex mechanical, thermal and durability that is unpredictable across length which limits its structural adoption and its predictive understanding. This study evaluates a computational multi scale performance modelling framework for Plastic Recycled Bricks by formulating hierarchical and concurrent strategies to couple polymer-matrix viscoelasticity and interfacial cohesion at micro scale, representative-volume-element (RVE) homogenisation at meso-scale, and continuum structural response at macro scale. Constitutive models are parameterised from published experimental dataset. Finite element homogenisation of generated RVEs determine the effective stiffness and thermal- conductivity tensors that was used to analyse macro-scale brick and masonry models. Comparative analysis of multiscale model against single scale continuum approach proves that multiscale model delivers a superior predictive accuracy for compressive strength, elastic modulus and thermal conductivity with the capabilities of capturing damage localization and creep. Interfacial bonding strength, filler volume fraction and residual porosity are the important governing parameters that were revealed by the sensitivity analysis. Due to virtual mix optimization, the framework established a theoretical performance base PRB design which contribute to a transferable computational methodology for recycling plastic waste in sustainable construction and built environment.