Insights
•HTS+ in 2024
HTS+ is Heyne Tillett Steel’s self-funded research and innovation initiative. There are now six of us with a variety of skills and experience, including structural engineers, software developers, and – as of this year – a materials scientist.
As a busy 2024 draws to a close, I wanted to highlight some of the research and innovation we’ve produced this year. Research projects can take a long time to complete, as the objectives shift and new information is uncovered, so it’s important to take stock and acknowledge our progress.
A selection of what we did in 2024:
- We published the final report and summary conclusions for our research on reusing concrete-encased steel, a project supported by Innovate UK. This concluded that while it’s possible, recovering encased steel is difficult to justify.
- We published a research report on aggregates in UK construction, looking at where they come from, where they are used, and what happens to recycled aggregates. It turns out that we could find very little information to account for recycled aggregates. While the industry achieves excellent diversion of construction and demolition waste from landfill, there is currently almost no data on where it ends up.
- Following discussion and debate amongst colleagues, we wrote this summary of our current stance on the availability and use of GGBS in concrete. No doubt this will be updated in the coming years, and we’re happy to be involved in groups like the ACDG and deepening our collaboration with the concrete industry.
- We’ve been revisiting concepts like structural reuse and adaptability, approaching them from a new, visual angle with the help of our in-house graphics expert, Rosie Haggarty. There’ll be more to share on that in 2025.
- We’ve been exploring material supply chains, such as steel, to better understand which levers may have the most effect on decarbonising materials. This work will help inform our contributions to the UKGBC Embodied Ecological Impacts Coalition.
- We continue to explore reusing concrete. Alongside HTS project engineers, we designed reused concrete slabs as soft spot infills which was included for pricing in a project’s tender documents. A collaboration with 3XN with valuable input from Charlie Wedgwood.
- We’re continuously updating and improving our project carbon database for ease of use, reporting, graphics, and underlying assumptions. It’s an internal tool that’s bespoke for our modelling workflow but we’re hoping to start publishing aggregated insights next year.
Thanks to the team, to KLH Sustainability and everyone else we’ve collaborated with over the year. We have lots more in the pipeline for 2025.
If you’d like to collaborate or find out more about any of our research projects, get in touch.
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