Innovative Materials and Sustainable Infrastructure Construction

Dear Colleagues,

The development of smart cities cannot be separated from the development of their infrastructures. To have a balance between sustainability and optimal structures, designers need to investigate the impact of new unconventional materials or common materials used for new construction systems on the structure reliability. As, for example, in the field of bridge engineering, the structural design follows consolidated laws to estimate the structural stability under traffic or wind loads, based on literature or guidelines in codes of practice. However, for designers to use new materials or new construction systems, guidelines must be updated. Similarly, road covering, tunnels, dikes, and other crucial infrastructures need to be built faster using new materials or new techniques. The mass distribution, the structural damping, the fatigue phenomenon, flutter phenomenon, and other important issues depend on material mechanical characteristics or constructional technology. These closely affect the structural reliability that should be investigated carefully through experiments or numerical analyses to achieve prototyping. Generally, the prototyping process is focused on case studies to achieve a generalization. Some examples can be new construction technology through wood systems or recycling materials. We expect that these materials achieve the same safety as traditional materials, such as, for example, reinforced concrete or steel. However, to achieve these goals, structures should be designed differently, using non-traditional materials. Of course, in the first phase of an investigation, results will not necessarily be all positive or solutions will not the best, but are, regardless, interesting for designers. This Special Issue will collect several case studies of infrastructures designed using new materials or new constructional systems. The Special Issue should be interesting for both designers and companies to develop research projects.

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.

• prototyping
• sustainability
• innovative materials
• sustainable infrastructure construction