The Circuit project meeting took place at ZAG from 23 to 25 April 2024. Yesterday, the participants visited the town of Črna na Koroškem and together with the Mayor Romana Lesjak, visited the bridges damaged in the floods and looked for innovative solutions for their rehabilitation.
ZAG experts took part in the event: dr. Lucija Hanžič, dr. Aljoša Šajna, dr. Stanislav Lenart, dr. Maja Kreslin, dr. Andrej Anžlin, dr. Siva Ram Karumanchi, Rok Bregar and Albert Lienart.

The Circuit project, funded by the European Union in the field of sustainable transport infrastructure construction, will implement five demonstration pilots in five countries – Croatia and the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Slovenia.

The Slovenian pilot will be carried out in Črna na Koroškem, where a new bridge over the Mežá River, which was badly damaged in last year’s floods, is being built. The pilot bridge will implement three types of innovative technologies: the use of soil-reinforced soil abutments and a vertical headwall, a modular decomposable lintel structure, and the use of digital manufacturing for the production of the guardrail.

All three innovative technologies use materials and elements from secondary sources, demonstrating the opportunities for a circular economy in construction. By reusing the girders of a bridge damaged in the floods and using flood debris to make the abutments, the Circuit project joins the post-flood reconstruction in an innovative way.

Project meetings were held on the first two days. On the first day, a professional tour of Ljubljana and some of Jože Plečnik’s innovative solutions was organised for the participants. On the second day, we shown ZAG’s investigations and equipment in the fields of materials, structures and geotechnics. The meeting stimulated a constructive dialogue between all partners with a productive exchange of views.

More about the project: the Circuit project is a 4-year research project under the call HORIZON-CL5-2022-D6-02, involving 20 partners from 9 countries and coordinated by FEHRL.

The project aims to promote the circular economy and resilience in transport infrastructure and to support the uptake of green and innovative public procurement and innovative engineering practices.

The project covers four pillars, namely (1) Digitisation, (2) Recycling, (3) Reuse and (4) Energy, which are integrated in five demonstration pilots. One of the pilots – the bridge in Črna na Koroškem – will be implemented in Slovenia in cooperation between the Municipality of Črna na Koroškem and ZAG.