Composite Building Materials with Minimal Thermal Conductivity for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Materials, and Repair & Renovation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 2 February 2026 | Viewed by 16
Special Issue Editor
2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Interests: building energy efficiency; residential and commercial building envelope systems evaluation; building science and energy efficiency of buildings; full-scale structural and environmental testing of building envelope systems; evaluation of building (structural and nonstructural) envelope systems under natural hazard and environmental load effects
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
It is estimated that over 25% of building energy loss occurs through building envelopes, and energy efficiency continues to be one of the most important building design criteria; therefore, the prevention of heat loss through conduction requires the use of materials with low thermal conductivity or high thermal resistance for manufacturing building components such as beams, columns, walls, floors, foundations, roofs, and envelopes.
The aim of this Special Issue is to consider developments in composite building materials such as various cementitious-concrete-type composites, fiber-reinforced composites, wood-based composites (e.g., plywood, oriented strand boards, glue-laminated timber, laminated veneer lumber, cross-laminated timber), structural insulated panels, organic-based composites, and plastic-based composites (e.g., PVC, LDPE, HDPE). Such materials can be used for load-bearing structural components, non-load-bearing or nonstructural/architectural components, building envelope components (e.g., cladding, siding, roofing, windows), interior finish components (e.g., drywall, flooring, ceiling), etc.
This Special Issue also welcomes contributions that, in addition to investigating methods for lowering thermal conductivity, also address lowering carbon footprints, as minimizing embodied energy is another prominent trend in innovative material design.
Prof. Dr. Ali Memari
Guest Editor
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2600 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.
Keywords
- buildings
- energy efficiency
- composite materials
- thermal conductivity
- thermal resistance
- heat conduction
- low carbon footprint
- embodied energy
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