Towards Sustainable and Resilient Pavements: Recycled Materials, Sensing Technologies, and Predictive Maintenance
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 162
Special Issue Editor
Interests: road safety; geometric design; autonomous vehicles; pavement maintenance; asphalt mixture; recycled aggregates; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In the face of pressing environmental challenges and increasing demands for infrastructure resilience, sustainable pavement engineering has emerged as a crucial research area. The design, construction, and maintenance of asphalt pavements are undergoing significant transformation through the incorporation of recycled materials, innovative additives, and advanced monitoring systems. These developments aim not only to extend the service life of pavements, but also to reduce resource consumption, energy use, and carbon emissions.
Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), rejuvenators, and recycled aggregates are being increasingly used in asphalt mixtures to foster circularity within road infrastructure systems. At the same time, advanced technologies such as self-healing materials are gaining attention for their potential to autonomously repair damage and delay deterioration. These innovations, combined with strategies to understand and mitigate aging effects, are key to enhancing long-term durability and performance.
In parallel, the integration of smart monitoring techniques is revolutionizing pavement management. Emerging data sources—including crowdsourced information from connected and autonomous vehicles—enable real-time assessment of surface conditions and deterioration patterns at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Such data-driven approaches, enhanced by artificial intelligence and big data analytics, are creating new opportunities for proactive maintenance and informed decision-making.
This Special Issue is dedicated to recent advances in sustainable asphalt pavements and road materials. We invite original research and review articles addressing innovative approaches, materials, and tools that support environmentally responsible and technically sound pavement systems.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following list:
- Sustainable design and construction of asphalt mixtures;
- Use of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) and rejuvenators;
- Recycling of construction materials and circular economy practices;
- Self-healing properties of asphalt materials;
- Aging mechanisms and durability improvement;
- Characterization of recycled and modified asphalt materials;
- Pavement performance modeling and prediction;
- Smart roads and advanced pavement monitoring technologies;
- Crowdsourced and autonomous vehicle data for pavement evaluation;
- Artificial intelligence and big data in pavement engineering.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. David Llopis Castelló
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- sustainable asphalt pavement
- recycled materials
- resilient infrastructure
- asphalt durability
- pavement maintenance
- sensing technologies
- predictive maintenance
- smart roads
- self-healing asphalt
- pavement monitoring
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