Mineral-Bonded Composites for Enhanced Structural Impact Safety

Dear Colleagues,

Existing concrete, masonry or reinforced concrete structures feature, as a rule, a relatively low resistance to various sorts of impact loading, such as shock, collision, or explosion. Substantial improvements in impact resistance of new and existing buildings and infrastructure objects can be attained using innovative, mineral-bonded composites. As a result, public safety and the reliability of vitally important infrastructure should be significantly enhanced. The purpose of the suggested Special Issue is to contribute to shaping the scientific basis which would enable building new, impact-resistant structures economically and ecologically. The entire span from construction materials to the structures themselves should be covered. More specifically, articles should address one of the following themes:

• novel mineral-based composites, i.e., fine-grained concretes with different types of fiber reinforcement to yield especially high resistance to impact loading;
• building concepts and performance measurement principles for the strengthening of existing concrete structures through thin layers of novel, highly-ductile composites and for the building of new structures using these new types of concrete;
• appropriate measuring and evaluation methods for the analysis of the processes occurring during impact, such as wave propagation, deformation, fracture, etc.;
• methods for numerically simulating the behavior of new concrete types and strengthened structures subject to impact loading by coupling different space and time scales;
• fundamentals for safety evaluations, for assessing the economic and ecological aspects of the strengthening measures, and principles for increasing the efficiency of evaluation and assessment methods as well.

Prof. Viktor Mechtcherine
Dr. Iurie Curosu
Prof. Dr. Michael Kaliske
Guest Editors

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