Sustainable Construction and Building Materials

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue brings together materials, techniques and concepts from the following distinct disciplines in order to highlight the need for “Sustainable Construction and Building Materials” in civil infrastructure:

Innovative sustainable materials with reduced environmental footprints have recently been proposed as alternatives for the substitution of the conventional construction materials, which deplete natural resources, require increased energy consumption and cause considerable pollution of air, water, and land for their production. Sustainable forms of building materials and especially concrete that uses recycled materials instead of ordinary Portland cement and coarse aggregates attract great interest in the engineering community. Fly ash, blast furnace slag, agro-industrial, recycled concrete aggregates, crushed glass and other solid waste disposals show promising potential as total or partial replacements in conventional concrete mixtures.

On the other hand, ageing and deterioration of existing buildings due to degradation of materials, harsh environmental conditions, seismic excitations, overloading, inadequate maintenance and lack of frequent inspections are worldwide problems that pose serious risks to structural and life safety. Structural damage in buildings adversely impact their operational life spans and increase hazards of catastrophic failures if not controlled. The real-time surveillance and the in situ measurements of efficient Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques for prompt damage diagnoses help towards the quantification of the resiliency of existing buildings and ensure their continuous life-safety, sustainability and functional–economical operation. Innovative real-time SHM methods also support decision-making tools for prescribing proper maintenance and repair/strengthening schemes.

Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer-review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments and applications.

Dr. Constantin Chalioris
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Sustainability 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 2400 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.