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Advanced Concrete Technology and Applications in Construction Engineering, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 3494

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Harbor and River Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung 20201, Taiwan
Interests: localized meshless method; nonlinear iteration; Trefftz method; inverse problem; construction and building materials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering Management, National Quemoy University, Kinmen County 89250, Taiwan
Interests: 3D printing concrete; alkali-activated binder materials; sustainable; carbon sequestration; microstructure; durability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Concrete is the most widely used material in construction engineering. Although modern concrete technology has developed for two hundred years from when Portland cement was invented, it still needs further development to meet demands today. For example, the low carbon emissions of the raw materials used in concrete is a very important issue nowadays. Concrete can reduce surface runoff during heavy rainfall and achieve flood control in today's rapidly changing climate, but a major challenge is how to improve its strength to expand its application scope. How to enhance the sustainability and durability of concrete and how to repair and rehabilitate existing concrete structures to extend their service life are pressing issues that need to be addressed. Other topics such as high-performance concrete (HPC), high-performance grout (HPG), self-compacting concrete (SCC), inorganic geopolymer, 3D-printed concrete material, artificial intelligence applications in concrete technology, health monitoring systems in concrete, digital twin of concrete structure, conductive concrete, etc., are hot topics for future needs. This Special Issue invites contributors to submit their innovative ideas and scientific findings related to the advanced concrete technology and applications in construction engineering so that the latest developments that are currently under research can be revealed, and guidance for future directions in this field can be pointed out.

Prof. Dr. Weichung Yeih
Prof. Dr. Maochieh Chi
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • low carbon emission
  • pervious concrete
  • sustainability
  • durability
  • high performance concrete
  • high performance grout
  • self-compacting concrete
  • geopolymer
  • 3D-printed concrete
  • artificial intelligence
  • health monitoring

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 5475 KiB  
Article
Heavy Equipment Detection on Construction Sites Using You Only Look Once (YOLO-Version 10) with Transformer Architectures
by Ikchul Eum, Jaejun Kim, Seunghyeon Wang and Juhyung Kim
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(5), 2320; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052320 - 21 Feb 2025
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 828
Abstract
Monitoring heavy equipment in real time is crucial for ensuring safety and operational efficiency at construction sites, yet achieving both high detection accuracy and fast inference remains challenging under diverse environmental conditions. Although previous studies have attempted to improve accuracy and speed, their [...] Read more.
Monitoring heavy equipment in real time is crucial for ensuring safety and operational efficiency at construction sites, yet achieving both high detection accuracy and fast inference remains challenging under diverse environmental conditions. Although previous studies have attempted to improve accuracy and speed, their findings often lack generalizability, partly due to inconsistent datasets and the need for more advanced techniques. In response, this study proposes an enhanced object detection method that integrates transformer-based backbone networks into the You Only Look Once (YOLO-version 10) framework. Evaluations conducted on a large-scale dataset of construction-site images demonstrate notable improvements in detecting the heavy equipment of varying sizes. Comparisons with other detectors confirm that the proposed model not only achieves higher accuracy but also maintains competitive processing speed, making it suitable for real-time deployment. Additionally, the dataset is made available for broader experimentation and development. These findings underscore the method’s potential to strengthen on-site safety by providing more reliable and efficient heavy equipment detection in complex work environments, while also acknowledging areas for further refinement. Full article
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19 pages, 3005 KiB  
Article
A Study on Reactive Ultra-Fine Fly Ash and Sulfoaluminate Cement in Self-Leveling Mortar
by Pei-Min Chuang, Wei-Chung Yeih, Ran Huang and Jiang-Jhy Chang
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(3), 1358; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15031358 - 28 Jan 2025
Viewed by 735
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to find appropriate mixtures for self-leveling mortar that meet the fluidity requirements without displaying segregation by using a combination of two types of cement (Type I Portland cement and sulfoaluminate cement (SAC)) with reactive ultra-fine fly ash [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study is to find appropriate mixtures for self-leveling mortar that meet the fluidity requirements without displaying segregation by using a combination of two types of cement (Type I Portland cement and sulfoaluminate cement (SAC)) with reactive ultra-fine fly ash (RUFA). Unlike the fly ash, RUFA has a strong strength activity index and exhibits a significant pattern of amorphous phase in XRD. Appropriate mix proportions of raw materials, including the superplasticizer, require investigation in depth. A fixed water-to-binder ratio of 0.6 was selected, with varying proportions of the two cementitious materials considered (the SAC volume percentages were 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30%) and different RUFA contents (the RUFA volume percentages were 5%, 10%, and 15%). Twelve experiments were conducted to examine the properties of the self-leveling mortars. We found that a higher RUFA volume percentage results in lower porosity, higher compressive strength, and better resistance to drying shrinkage, abrasion, and restrained shrinkage cracking. Increasing the SAC volume percentage increases the porosity of self-leveling mortar and its early compressive strength but decreases late-stage strength. At a 10% volume percentage level, SAC achieves an ideal balance among drying shrinkage, brasion, and shrinkage cracking. Full article
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17 pages, 16109 KiB  
Article
Effect of High Percentages of Coated Recycled Aggregates on the Flexural Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Beams
by Catalina Martínez, Viviana Letelier and Bruno Wenzel
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(2), 829; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15020829 - 16 Jan 2025
Viewed by 603
Abstract
Currently, the use of recycled aggregates (RA) in new concrete is allowed by several international regulations, although their replacement is limited to low percentages of the coarse fraction. In order to increase the percentage of RA, several authors have studied different processes to [...] Read more.
Currently, the use of recycled aggregates (RA) in new concrete is allowed by several international regulations, although their replacement is limited to low percentages of the coarse fraction. In order to increase the percentage of RA, several authors have studied different processes to improve the microstructure of its surface. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze whether the current standards simulate the structural behavior of concretes with high percentages of RA. For this purpose, beams with 0%, 50% and 100% RA replacement coated with recycled binder paste (RBP) were made and their behavior was compared with the equations of the Eurocode 2 and ACI 318-19 code. As a result, we found that when 100% coated RA was used, the reduction in compressive strength was only 12.73%, with similar cracking patterns observed in RA beams across all series. In addition, the load capacity of the beams with RA was higher than the theoretical values provided by the codes. Finally, the experimental critical deflection was higher than that calculated by the code equations. Thus, it is recommended that these higher deflections be taken into account at the time of design. Full article
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23 pages, 6079 KiB  
Article
Water Demand (or Specific Surface) of Aggregate as a Dominating Factor for SCC Composition Design
by Maciej Urban
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(23), 11108; https://doi.org/10.3390/app142311108 - 28 Nov 2024
Viewed by 734
Abstract
In the modern era of superplasticizer-based concrete technology, water demand (or specific surface) of aggregate is a significantly underestimated factor influencing cement paste demand in the self-compacting concrete (SCC) design process. The presented data show that it is the key factor for optimization [...] Read more.
In the modern era of superplasticizer-based concrete technology, water demand (or specific surface) of aggregate is a significantly underestimated factor influencing cement paste demand in the self-compacting concrete (SCC) design process. The presented data show that it is the key factor for optimization criterion of SCC cement paste demand. Four models were taken into consideration (Bolomey, Stern, modified Loudon, and Relative Specific Surface), and all of them fit linearly very well (R2 ≥ 0.95) to the relative thickness of coating aggregate with cement paste (trel). This means that all of these models may be used interchangeably in the process of SCC design without any alteration (so there is no need to develop a new model). Including the water demand of aggregate in the design procedure in its proposed version sets the bottom limit of superplasticizer dose for laboratory trials, leaving only small gap for eventual minor adjustments. Full article
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