Construction Industrialization and Intelligent Construction in Modular Integrated Buildings, High-Strength Steel Structures and Intelligent Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

The construction industry is shifting from fragmented on-site production toward standardized design, off-site manufacturing, modular assembly, and data-driven operation. Construction industrialization integrates structural engineering, advanced materials, manufacturing, logistics, on-site installation, and life-cycle management. Modular integrated buildings are representative applications, combining factory production, rapid assembly, structural safety, and convenient maintenance.

However, their wider application still faces key scientific and engineering challenges. Discontinuities at module-to-module, beam-to-column, wall-to-frame, component-to-foundation, and equipment-to-structure interfaces strongly affect stiffness, strength, ductility, damage evolution, and failure modes under earthquakes, wind, repeated loading, transportation, lifting, and installation. Manufacturing tolerances, connection quality, assembly sequence, and multi-trade coordination may also lead to differences between design assumptions and actual structural behavior.

High-performance materials and structural systems offer new opportunities for industrialized construction. High-strength steel, low-yield-point steel, UHPC, ECC, and steel–concrete composite components can improve structural lightweighting, load-bearing efficiency, energy dissipation, and post-event repairability. Nevertheless, their constitutive behavior, local instability, cumulative damage, interface interaction, and system-level load-transfer mechanisms require further study. Additionally, simplified models, performance-based design methods, and code-oriented recommendations are also needed.

Digital and intelligent technologies are important enablers of this transformation, and BIM, digital twins, machine vision, robotics, intelligent sensing, artificial intelligence, and data analytics can support design, production, assembly, inspection, and operation. Further research is needed to establish closed-loop workflows for the quality control, construction optimization, condition assessment, defect detection, and predictive maintenance of modular buildings, transmission towers, and related energy infrastructure.

This Topic aims to report recent theoretical, experimental, numerical, and engineering advances in construction industrialization and intelligent construction, with particular attention to modular integrated buildings, high-performance structural systems, industrialized connections, and intelligent inspection and operation technologies. Contributions combining structural mechanics, manufacturing, digital technologies, and engineering validation are especially encouraged.

We welcome original research articles, review papers, technical notes, and case studies. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Structural systems and performance-based design methods for modular integrated buildings;
• Module-to-module connections, beam–column joints, wall–frame interfaces, and foundation connections;
• Composite wall panels, lateral-force-resisting components, and simplified design methods for modular structures;
• Equipment–structure interaction and integrated structural–functional design of industrialized energy facilities;
• High-strength steel, hybrid steel systems, and replaceable or low-damage energy-dissipation components;
• High-performance concrete, UHPC, ECC, and steel–concrete composite components for prefabricated construction;
• Earthquake, wind, progressive-collapse, fatigue, impact, and multi-hazard performance of industrialized structures;
• Designs for manufacturability and assembly, standardized designs, tolerance control, logistics, and assembly optimization;
• BIM, digital twins, robotics, automated production, and intelligent construction management;
• Computer vision, deep learning, and unmanned inspection for defect and component detection;
• Structural health monitoring, smart sensing, safety assessment, and predictive maintenance;
• Life-cycle carbon assessment, circular design, disassembly, reuse, and sustainability of industrialized structures;
• Full-scale tests, field monitoring, demonstration projects, and code-oriented design recommendations.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Hongwei Ma
Dr. Fangxin Hu
Prof. Dr. Xin Hu
Guest Editors

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• construction industrialization
• intelligent construction
• modular integrated buildings
• prefabricated and dry connections
• high-performance structures
• high-strength steel
• composite wall panels
• seismic performance
• design for manufacture and assembly
• building information modeling
• digital twins
• computer vision
• structural health monitoring
• predictive maintenance