Design, Process, Energy, and Evaluation in Construction Material Science

A special issue of Construction Materials (ISSN 2673-7108).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 August 2025 | Viewed by 688

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, Academia of ACMCEN, Beaverton, OR 97075, USA
Interests: construction materials; sustainability; energy; supplementary cementitious materials; by-products; upcycling; recycle; reuse; reduce; strength; fracture mechanics; XRD characterization; SEM/EDS analysis; XRF chemical composition analysis; DTA/TG analysis; FTIR analysis; bitumen; resin; epoxy; continuum mechanics; shear/flexural/compressive strength; plates and shells; advanced engineering analysis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Civil Engineering, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, UK
2. Faculty of Engineering, Beirut Arab University, Beirut 11 5020, Lebanon
Interests: construction and structural materials
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Design, Process, Energy, and Evaluation is a broad field in the research of Construction Material Science. At the beginning of the 1960s, design and process-oriented research was the primary interest of scientists and methodologists, including technical and social scientists. However, since then, research has focused little on design and process-oriented methodologies, especially in the evaluation of construction materials. Therefore, this Special Issue focuses on topics such as construction binders, by-products, waste-to-material processing, and the transformation of by-products into construction materials; these topics will be addressed in relation to the manufacturing process, the evaluation of features, CO2 neutrality, the achievement of net zero CO2 emissions and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; and energy demand.

Regarding the use of by-products as an alternative material in the mitigation of climate change, the vast majority of hazardous industrial by-products/human-based wastes meet the requirements of green-binder-based structural/construction materials in the manufacture of raw materials with low greenhouse gas emissions. The availability of by-products/human-based wastes enables them to provide specific functions in the preparation of products used in roads, bridges, buildings, and other engineering, environmental, constructional, and infrastructural projects. Therefore, varying volumes of these by-products should be mixed with cement, sand, tar, granulates, and clay to create attractive construction materials, such as blended cement, substituted cement, mortar composites, grout composites, bitumen composites, brick composites, geopolymer composites, and lightweight construction composites modified with fibre, carbon nanotubes, and graphite nanoparticles.

This Special Issue, entitled “Design, Process, Energy, and Evaluation in Construction Material Science, aims to provide an overview of the design, processing and evaluation of materials through a systematic assessment of the input and outcome. All the information gathered in this Special Issue will enhance the design of novel construction materials.

This Special Issue will enable engineers and researchers to develop efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly production processes and materials.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics;

  • Non-Portland cement binders with by-products,
  • Portland cement binders with by-products,
  • Construction binders with fibre,
  • Reviews regarding the transformation of by-products into materials for use in construction,
  • The use of nanotechnology in transforming by-products into materials for use in the construction process,
  • Evaluation methodology for the transformation of by-products into materials for use in construction,
  • Analysis and characterization of the transformation of by-products into materials,
  • The failure mechanism of transforming by-products into materials for end-users

Prof. Dr. M. Serkan Kirgiz
Prof. Dr. Jamal Khatib
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. Construction Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1000 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.

Keywords

  • clinker
  • gypsum
  • construction lime
  • cement
  • supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), pulverized fuel ash, rice husk ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, steel slag, mine tailing, red mud, limestone sludge
  • calcined clay powder
  • marble powder
  • metakaolin
  • carbon nano tube
  • carbon-based nano dot
  • carbon-based quantum dot
  • fiber
  • cellulose
  • design
  • process
  • material
  • energy
  • evaluation
  • by-product in various industry
  • manufacturing of materials
  • nanomaterials
  • usage of fibre in material
  • lightweight materials
  • structural materials
  • natural materials
  • sustainable construction materials
  • reuse
  • recycling
  • upcycling

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 3571 KiB  
Article
Segregation Sensitivity of Concrete—Quantification by Concrete Density
by Maureen Denu, Frank Spörel, David Alós Shepherd, Hassan Ahmed, Jouni Punkki and Frank Dehn
Constr. Mater. 2025, 5(2), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/constrmater5020022 - 8 Apr 2025
Viewed by 195
Abstract
Concrete segregation can lead to variations in hardened concrete’s properties, such as strength and Young’s modulus, or permeability, resulting in changing volume ratios between aggregates and paste within a concrete element. One approach to mitigate this potential risk is to conduct a performance [...] Read more.
Concrete segregation can lead to variations in hardened concrete’s properties, such as strength and Young’s modulus, or permeability, resulting in changing volume ratios between aggregates and paste within a concrete element. One approach to mitigate this potential risk is to conduct a performance test to assess vibrated concrete’s segregation sensitivity. This paper outlines various methods to evaluate the segregation sensitivity of vibrated concrete, aiming to support adequate concrete casting. The focus is on practical feasibility while maintaining test accuracy. For hydraulic engineering in Germany, test procedures to evaluate segregation sensitivity on fresh and hardened concrete based on aggregate distribution are described in the “BAW-Code of practice MESB”. However, this method is very complex and, therefore, difficult to implement in practice. Another procedure for hardened concrete is based on concrete density. In this paper, both methods are compared to investigate if evaluating fresh concrete using a simple density criterion leads to a comparably significant differentiation of vibrated concrete with different segregation sensitivities. The primary emphasis lies in accurately classifying examined concretes in terms of their segregation sensitivity, evaluating the scatter of results, and assessing the practical applicability of these methods. The investigations demonstrate that a density-based method can yield reliable and comparable results to those obtained through the wash-out test according to “BAW-Code of practice MESB”. Additionally, a simpler and faster procedure is achievable with the density approach. Hence, density evaluation offers a practical alternative to the wash-out test. Full article
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