RECOVERY OF MATERIALS. CONSTRUCTION WASTE. THE NETHERLANDS 2024

The residential and non-residential construction sector generates a significant amount of waste, both in the actual construction phase and in the demolition phase. And this represents only a part of what is understood by the construction sector, in general. There is a wide variety of materials that are used in construction, and implicitly that can be recovered and introduced into what is called the circular economy.

CUSTOMER APPLICATION. The customer wants to recover the filling material from sandwich panels resulting from constructions, which is a soft material, glued to two metal surfaces. This requires that the soft core be separated by cutting from the two outer metal surfaces, with as high a degree of recovery as possible.

VERTICAL CUTTING. Cutting can be done by placing the panel on a vertical cutting machine, where there is the possibility that by successively supporting each metal surface of the panel against the side wall of the machine, a cut very close to this surface can be done, without the risk of breakage of the knife, through contact with the metal surface.

HORIZONTAL CUTTING. The cutting can also be done in a horizontal position, by placing the panel onto a horizontal cutting machine or onto a machine with numerical control. In this case, the cutting was done successfully, although only one surface can be placed on the table of the machine, allowing the best control of the proximity of the knife to the metal surface, and a better control of the cutting respectively.

OUR SOLUTION. Although the degree of recovery can theoretically be better on a CNC, through the possibility of programming the knife to follow a precise trajectory, in the absence of other applications on a CNC, this machine can be too expensive. At the same time, the vertical cutting machine can also be efficient enough, offering a high degree of recovery, greater ease of operation and a half price of that of an CNC machine. Therefore, we will recommend to our customer the purchase of a vertical cutting machine, after carrying out the cutting tests and the customer's opinion regarding the results obtained.