Sustainable Recycling Techniques of Pavement Materials (3rd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid development of infrastructure constructions, more and more existing pavements need to be recycled and reconstructed, especially recycled asphalt pavement, which consists of the world’s most recycled materials. Of all the ubiquitous things in our environment, roads are probably one of the least noticed. Our pavements see tremendous volumes of traffic and withstand considerable variations in weather and climate, and they do this on a pretty tight budget. This is only possible because scientists, engineers, contractors and public works crews keep up with the incredible but straightforward material known as asphalt. Therefore, innovative techniques for recycling and processing materials that could be used for new pavement construction have attracted more attention, considering their benefits in different properties. In recent years, warm and cold recycling techniques were proposed for recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) due to their benefits in temperature reduction that can effectively decrease energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. In addition, pavement materials containing municipal solid waste (MSW) were also widely studied, including but not limited to rubberized concrete, rubberized asphalt, and alternative cementitious materials for concrete pavements. Both of the above techniques or materials were applied to improve the mechanical and durability performances of newly constructed pavements and reduce the environmental effects of landfills and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The exploration of their effects on the various properties of materials and structures in pavements has also been widely conducted. During the exploration, not only experimental investigations but simulations and life cycle assessments were also operated in multiple aspects to evaluate, optimize, and predict the various properties.

This Special Issue will focus on innovative and efficient techniques and materials for pavement recycling and reconstruction. The main sub-topics include pavement recycling techniques, the effective utilization of industrial and construction waste in pavement engineering, improvements in sustainable techniques for pavement materials (e.g., warm and cold recycling technology for old asphalt pavement and GHG emission reduction techniques for RAP, etc.), green low-carbon and durable pavement structures and materials, the evaluation and simulation of sustainable pavement materials, the investigation of durability performance enhancement by recycled pavement materials and life cycle assessment (LCA)  regarding the utilization of recycled and waste materials in pavement construction.

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Articles and review papers for this topic are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Dongdong Ge
Prof. Dr. Kezhen Yan
Dr. Li Liu
Guest Editors

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