Sustainable Design of Foundations and Substructures

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to collate recent research information and technological breakthroughs on the design and construction of sustainable foundations. The primary focus is the re-use and recycling of old foundations, as well as use of substructures to harness ground heat and storm water, thereby reducing dependence on mains electricity, gas, and water. The purpose of the Special Issue is to update knowledge and to supplement existing textbooks, such as (i) “Reuse of Foundations for Urban Sites—A best Practice Handbook, edited by A.P. Butcher, J.J.M. Powell, and H.D. Skinner (published in 2006 by IHS BRE Press, Berkshire, U.K.) and (ii) “Geothermal Energy, Heat Exchange Systems, and Energy Piles—ICE Themes, edited by William Craig and Kenneth Gavin (ICE Publishing). The Special Issue will cover key areas in the sustainability of substructures:

• factors driving sustainable use of foundations
• site investigation and various geotechnical risks specific to sustainable substructures
• ethical, financial, and legal issues associated with the re-use of foundations and heat extracting foundations
• decision models for evaluating the recyclability and reusability of existing foundations
• technical guidelines for designing foundations for future decommissioning and reuse
• performance indicators for foundation sustainability
• low carbon technologies in foundation construction
• effective use of substructres for storage and purification of precipitation water harvesting systems
• mitigating the impact of deconstruction and recycling of old foundations and other substructures, e.g., retaining walls, rafts basements

Dr. Joshua Omer
Prof. J. Jayamohan
Guest Editors

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. 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.

• sustainability
• re-use of foundations
• low carbon construction
• energy piles and ground source heat pumps
• substructure design for deconstruction and recycling
• waste reduction in constructing foundations
• environmental assessment of foundations
• substructures for stormwater storage
• site investigation for sustainable foundations
• testing of foundations for reuse
• managing geotechnical risk
• ethics, legal, and financial considerations