Sustainability of Concrete Infrastructures: New Applications, Monitoring and Retrofitting

Dear Colleagues,

The interactions with the environment from the cradle to the grave define the sustainability of materials, buildings, infrastructures and of our society. Concrete is the world’s most commonly used construction material, but it requires energy and natural resources that are limited. Consequently, environmental impact of concrete constructions and infrastructures is a major problem for civil engineering causing significant societal impacts. Indeed, concrete-based infrastructure projects require major investments of public capital and trigger enormous greenhouse gas emissions from cement production resulting in pollution and consumption of natural resources.

On the one hand, the request of materials for new infrastructures is huge in developing countries, while, on the other hand, maintenance and retrofitting of aged infrastructures represent a current engineering challenge in developed countries. Moreover, as very important budgets are necessary to keep their functionality, monitoring of infrastructures is of paramount relevance to have a proper and timely maintenance capable of controlling the increasing degradation. In addition, the retrofitting of existing infrastructures is another key aspect to reduce the environmental impact related to both construction and demolition (C&D) waste materials and production of new concrete. Therefore, the need of sustainable approaches for both new and existing concrete constructions is patent.

Recycled materials, innovative assessment methods, retrofitting techniques and smart monitoring systems in the framework of a Life Cycle Assessment strategy are promising answers to the above-mentioned problems. Unfortunately, appropriate design recommendations are often not available, and thus experimental investigations, numerical simulation and research activities can have a key role within the overall sustainable infrastructure development.

In this Special Issue, we invite the publication of original research and review papers, experimental and/or numerical investigations on the sustainability of concrete infrastructures. Both new sustainable materials, design projects or monitoring and retrofitting of existing infrastructures will be of interest for the Special Issue.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Design of new concrete infrastructures;
• New sustainable and/or recycled materials and mixture design;
• Advanced design and assessment techniques;
• Case studies;
• Monitoring, maintenance and retrofitting of infrastructures;
• Advances in sustainable infrastructures, as well as socio-economical aspects.

Dr. Carmine Lima
Dr. Flavio Stochino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Infrastructures is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.