Crack Prediction and Preventive Repair Methods for the Increasing Sustainability and Safety Requirements of Structures

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid development of advanced technologies and the increasingly sophisticated demand for high-performance working environments have promoted an increasing number of developers to consider adding “intelligence” to civil engineering in order to improve the safety of structures and enhance operational performance.

However, the lack of a satisfactory consensus for the characterization of system intelligence and structured analytical decision models inhibits the ability of developers and practitioners to understand and configure optimum smart structures in a fully informed manner. Little research has been conducted that aids in the decisions and appraisal of smart structures and components in Civil Engineering.

Smart structures of Civil Engineering are a kind of bionic structure system which integrates sensors into civil engineering structures, control systems, and actuators, endowing the structure with intelligent functions and life characteristics such as self-sensing, health self-diagnostics, environmental self-adaptation, and damage recovery for the purpose of enhancing the ability of structural safety, disaster prevention and mitigation, and improving the operational performance of the structure.

The search for optimal methodologies, methods, and models for predicting crack development in multiaxially loaded structures and preventive repair methods, including smart self-healing materials, is justified by the increasing sustainability and safety requirements of structures. The appearance of small cracks in concrete is unavoidable—not necessarily causing risk for structure collapse but certainly accelerating its degradation and diminishing the service life and sustainability of constructions. That loss of performance and functionality promotes increasing investment into maintenance and/or intensive repair/strengthening works. The critical nature of such requirements is signified by their inclusion as priority challenges in the European Research Program.

The focus of this Special Issue is to showcase novel methods, methodologies, and models for the prediction of crack development in structures and appropriate preventive repair methods such as self-healing. The innovative and comparative characterization techniques for self-healing performance verification and modeling of the healing mechanisms is important for the use of self-healing capabilities of concrete by external healing methods as well as for predicting the increase in service life achieved by preventive repair methods.

Research papers investigating damage prediction and preventive repair of structures in real conditions are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Diana Bajare
Guest Editor

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