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Infrastructures
Special Issues
Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures
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Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures

A special issue of Infrastructures (ISSN 2412-3811).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 26372

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ali Behnood

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research Associate, Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue Univeristy, 550 W Stadium Ave., West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA
Interests: artificial intelligence; supplementary cementitious materials; concrete durability; multifunctional materials; additive manufacturing; sustainability; microstructure; advanced characterization techniques
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Concrete is the most widely used construction material in pavements and structures, the production of which requires large quantities of natural sources. Ensuring the durability and sustainability of the concrete elements of outmost importance due to the role they play in the economic growth of nations. Efforts to produce sustainable concretes have led to the use of alternative materials for the generally used components such as ordinary Portland cement and aggregates. Durability of concrete mixtures in various and distinct environments (e.g., marine, saline and cold regions) are also getting more and more attention by governments and researchers since it can help to increase the service life of concrete elements and infrastructures.

This Special Issue, “Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures”, focuses on the latest research findings in the broader area of the durability and sustainability of concrete mixtures. Various original and novel research topics will be considered, including, but not limited to:

  • Durability and mechanical properties of sustainable concretes
  • Effects of advanced, multifunctional, green and sustainable materials on the durability and sustainability of concrete elements
  • Nano-engineered pavements and structures
  • Service life assessment of concrete pavements and structures containing sustainable materials
  • Advanced characterization and monitoring of sustainable concrete pavements and structures
  • Life time extension approaches, especially under severe environmental conditions such as freezing-thawing cycles
  • Machine learning techniques and artificial intelligence for prediction of the behavior of sustainable concretes

Dr. Ali Behnood
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 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. Infrastructures is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 1800 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

  • Durability 
  • Sustainability 
  • Supplementary cementitious materials 
  • Bio-based materials 
  • Green materials 
  • Nano-materials 
  • Freezing and thawing resistance 
  • Sulfate attack 
  • Microstructure
  • Deicer salt scaling

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 3640 KiB  
Article
Characterizing the Performance of Ternary Concrete Mixtures Involving Slag and Metakaolin
by Matthew S. Sullivan, Mi G. Chorzepa and Stephan A. Durham
Infrastructures 2020, 5(2), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures5020014 - 31 Jan 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3728
Abstract
Ternary blends of cementitious materials are investigated. A cement replacement level of 45% is used for all ternary mixtures consisting of 15% metakaolin and 30% slag replacements. Three metakaolin and two blast furnace slag, referred to as ‘slag’ for short, products commercially available [...] Read more.
Ternary blends of cementitious materials are investigated. A cement replacement level of 45% is used for all ternary mixtures consisting of 15% metakaolin and 30% slag replacements. Three metakaolin and two blast furnace slag, referred to as ‘slag’ for short, products commercially available are used to compare performance in ternary blends. A mixture with a 45% fly ash replacement is included to serve as a benchmark for performance. The control mixture contains 422 kg of cement per cubic meter of concrete, and a water-to-cementitious material ratio of 0.43 is used for all mixtures with varying dosages of superplasticizer to retain workability. Mixtures are tested for mechanical properties, durability, and volumetric stability. Mechanical properties include compression, split-cylinder tension, modulus of rupture, and dynamic Young’s modulus. Durability measures are comprised of rapid chloride-ion penetrability, sulfate resistance, and alkali–silica reactivity. Finally, the measure of dimensional stability is assessed by conducting drying shrinkage and coefficient of thermal expansion tests. Results indicate that ternary mixtures including metakaolin perform similarly to the control with respect to mechanical strength. It is concluded that ternary blends perform significantly better than both control and fly ash benchmark in tests measuring durability. Furthermore, shrinkage is reduced while the coefficients of thermal expansion are slightly higher than control and the benchmark. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures)
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17 pages, 4092 KiB  
Article
Eco-Efficient Fiber-Reinforced Preplaced Recycled Aggregate Concrete under Impact Loading
by Saud Alfayez, Mohamed A. E. M. Ali and Moncef L. Nehdi
Infrastructures 2019, 4(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures4020037 - 21 Jun 2019
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5527
Abstract
This study explores highly eco-efficient preplaced aggregate concrete mixtures having superior tensile characteristics and impact resistance developed for pavement and infrastructure applications. A fully recycled granular skeleton consisting of recycled concrete aggregate and recycled tire rubber granules, and steel wire fibers from scrap [...] Read more.
This study explores highly eco-efficient preplaced aggregate concrete mixtures having superior tensile characteristics and impact resistance developed for pavement and infrastructure applications. A fully recycled granular skeleton consisting of recycled concrete aggregate and recycled tire rubber granules, and steel wire fibers from scrap tires are first placed in the formwork, then injected with a flowable grout. Considering its very high recycled content and limited mixing and placement energy (only the grout is mixed, and no mechanical vibration is needed), this material has exceptional sustainability features and offers superior time and cost savings. Moreover, typical problems of rapid loss of workability due to the high-water absorption of recycled aggregates and the floating of lightweight tire rubber granules are prevented since the aggregates are preplaced in the formwork. The much higher granular content and its denser skeleton reduce the cementitious dosage substantially and provide high volume stability against shrinkage and thermal strains. The behavior under impact loading of this sustainable preplaced recycled aggregate concrete, incorporating randomly dispersed steel wire fibers retrieved from scrap tires, was investigated using a drop weight impact test. The results show that recycled tire steel wire fibers significantly enhanced the tensile and impact properties. A two-parameter Weibull distribution provided an accurate prediction of the impact failure strength of the preplaced recycled aggregate concrete mixtures, allowing to avert additional costly laboratory experiments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures)
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11 pages, 3361 KiB  
Article
Mix Design and Mechanical Properties of Fly Ash and GGBFS-Synthesized Alkali-Activated Concrete (AAC)
by Ramamohana Reddy Bellum, Ruben Nerella, Sri Rama Chand Madduru and Chandra Sekhar Reddy Indukuri
Infrastructures 2019, 4(2), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures4020020 - 02 May 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 10155
Abstract
Cement is one of the construction materials widely used around the world in order to develop infrastructure and it is also one of the factors affecting economies. The production of cement consumes a lot of raw materials like limestone, which releases CO2 [...] Read more.
Cement is one of the construction materials widely used around the world in order to develop infrastructure and it is also one of the factors affecting economies. The production of cement consumes a lot of raw materials like limestone, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere and thus leads to global warming. Many investigations are underway in this area, essentially focusing on the eco-accommodating environment. In the research, an alternative material to cement binder is geopolymer binder, with the same efficiency. This paper presents scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of factory byproducts (i.e., fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS)). The mix design process for the manufacture of alkali-activated geopolymer binders synthesized by fly ash and GGBFS is presented. The mechanical properties (compression, split tensile and flexural strength, bond strength) of geopolymer concrete at different mix proportions and at dissimilar curing conditions were also investigated. Geopolymer concrete synthesized with 30% fly ash and 70% GGBFS has better properties at 14 M of NaOH and cured in an oven for 24 h at 70 °C. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures)
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16 pages, 2896 KiB  
Article
On the Theoretical CO2 Sequestration Potential of Pervious Concrete
by Ethan Ellingboe, Jay H. Arehart and Wil V. Srubar III
Infrastructures 2019, 4(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures4010012 - 16 Mar 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6255
Abstract
Pervious concrete, which has recently found new applications in buildings, is both energy- and carbon-intensive to manufacture. However, similar to normal concrete, some of the initial CO2 emissions associated with pervious concrete can be sequestered through a process known as carbonation. In [...] Read more.
Pervious concrete, which has recently found new applications in buildings, is both energy- and carbon-intensive to manufacture. However, similar to normal concrete, some of the initial CO2 emissions associated with pervious concrete can be sequestered through a process known as carbonation. In this work, the theoretical formulation and application of a mathematical model for estimating the carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration potential of pervious concrete is presented. Using principles of cement and carbonation chemistry, the model related mixture proportions of pervious concretes to their theoretical in situ CO2 sequestration potential. The model was subsequently employed in a screening life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify the percentage of recoverable CO2 emissions—namely, the ratio of in situ sequesterable CO2 to initial cradle-to-gate CO2 emissions—for common pervious concrete mixtures. Results suggest that natural carbonation can recover up to 12% of initial CO2 emissions and that CO2 sequestration potential is maximized for pervious concrete mixtures with (i) lower water-to-cement ratios, (ii) higher compressive strengths, (iii) lower porosities, and (iv) lower hydraulic conductivities. However, LCA results elucidate that mixtures with maximum CO2 sequestration potential (i.e., mixtures with high cement contents and CO2 recoverability) emit more CO2 from a net-emissions perspective, despite their enhanced in situ CO2 sequestration potential. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Durability and Sustainability of Concrete Mixtures)
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