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Infrastructures
Special Issues
Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures
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Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures

A special issue of Infrastructures (ISSN 2412-3811). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Infrastructures".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2021) | Viewed by 46789

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ahmed W. A. Hammad

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
School of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Interests: sustainability; risk management; mathematical modelling; building information modelling (BIM); digital engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Assed Naked Haddad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Polytechnic School, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Interests: sustainable construction; risk management; smart buildings; comfortable buildings; building information modeling (BIM); life cycle sustainability assessment; environmental impacts; energy efficiency
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Carlos A. P. Soares

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Escola de Engenharia. Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rua Passo da Pátria, 156 – 3º andar – Sala 365 – Bloco “D” – São Domingos , Niterói, CEP: 24210-240, Brazil
Interests: construction management; sustainability; smart and sustainable cities; built environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The design, construction and maintenance of urban infrastructure are permanent activities that shape the built environment and impact the sustainability of cities due to typically being large-sized projects and having a high level of intervention. More recently, infrastructure projects have been developed in an environment in which the growing demand from society and the production system for smarter, more sustainable and resilient cities, combined with global challenges, such as those imposed by climate change, has accelerated urban growth and continued to transform the urban space and technological development. All these demands have intensified the need for new approaches and methods aimed at increasing the intelligence, sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure. Optimisation, simulation, decision making and several other tools and methods have been used to address these challenges.

The purpose of this Special Edition is to integrate these three complementary axes—intelligence, sustainability and resilience—through two key themes: the first focusing on improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of the design, construction, operation, monitoring and maintenance processes, and the second focusing on improving infrastructure performance.

Contributions are welcome from academics, practitioners and students from any discipline or country, and multidisciplinary contributions will be encouraged. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include but are not limited to

  • Infrastructure life cycle assessment
  • Technology innovation
  • Sensing technologies, real-time data acquisition and analysis
  • Smart infrastructure management systems
  • BIM
  • Cleaner production
  • Smart and sustainable infrastructure project management practices
  • Smart and sustainable design, construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning practices
  • Sustainability indicators for infrastructure projects
  • Methodologies and tools to reduce the environmental, economic and social impacts of infrastructure projects
  • Drivers for increasing the intelligence, sustainability and resilience of infrastructure projects
  • Green Infrastructure
  • Optimisation, simulation and decision-making methods
  • Advanced design, construction, operation, maintenance techniques
  • Infrastructure safety
  • Structural health monitoring
  • Recent case studies (lessons learned)

Dr. Ahmed W. A. Hammad
Dr. Assed N. Haddad
Dr. Carlos A. P. Soares
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. 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

  • sustainability
  • resilience
  • built environment
  • infrastructure
  • smart cities

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  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 2139 KiB  
Article
Public Bus Transportation System Environmental Impact Projections Regarding Different Policy Scenarios—A LCA Study
by Michelle Leichter, Isadora Hackenhaar and Ana Passuello
Infrastructures 2021, 6(12), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6120169 - 1 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4040
Abstract
Urban activities, such as transportation, are responsible for a large portion of energy-related CO2 emissions. As the need for sustainable urban development increases, decision-makers embrace Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a reliable tool capable of generating scientifically based information on environmental impacts. [...] Read more.
Urban activities, such as transportation, are responsible for a large portion of energy-related CO2 emissions. As the need for sustainable urban development increases, decision-makers embrace Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a reliable tool capable of generating scientifically based information on environmental impacts. However, there is still a lack of an analysis standard regarding the particularities of urban systems. Therefore, this research aims to define current and future environmental profiles, considering a case study of the public transport system in Porto Alegre, considering specificities of the urban context and different public policy scenarios through LCA. These results show that, although the transportation system management relies on the municipalities, the higher significance of environmental impacts depend on a national policy for using biodiesel in the diesel sold, which could lead to an increase of, for example, up to 9.4% of CO2 emissions from 2017 (baseline) to 2030. Finally, it is perceivable that to conduct a LCA to support decision-making in public urban services, a detailed approach is needed considering that technological variables interact with the territorial context and policy changes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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14 pages, 3992 KiB  
Article
The Main Impacts of Infrastructure Works on Public Roads
by Eduardo A. N. e Santos, Clézio T. de S. Dutra, Christine K. Chinelli, Ahmed W. A. Hammad, Assed N. Haddad and Carlos A. P. Soares
Infrastructures 2021, 6(9), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6090118 - 24 Aug 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4195
Abstract
Infrastructure implementation and renovation in cities require work on public roads that impact the daily lives of road users and local population and commerce. Although the study of the impacts of infrastructure works in the researched literature has received various approaches, there is [...] Read more.
Infrastructure implementation and renovation in cities require work on public roads that impact the daily lives of road users and local population and commerce. Although the study of the impacts of infrastructure works in the researched literature has received various approaches, there is still a shortage of studies that identify the impacts of the implementation of infrastructure on public roads and the importance of each one. This study collaborates with this theme by researching the main impacts caused by infrastructure works on public roads based on extensive and detailed bibliographic research and based on a survey carried out toward residents of the areas impacted by these works, road users, and Brazilian professionals with experience in the concerned field. The results showed that fourteen impacts identified in the literature were considered important by survey respondents, of which seven were considered the most important. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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16 pages, 896 KiB  
Article
Application of Fuzzy-TOPSIS Method in Supporting Supplier Selection with Focus on HSE Criteria: A Case Study in the Oil and Gas Industry
by Assed N. Haddad, Bruno B. F. da Costa, Larissa S. de Andrade, Ahmed Hammad and Carlos A. P. Soares
Infrastructures 2021, 6(8), 105; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6080105 - 28 Jul 2021
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4119
Abstract
Supply chain management is an emerging topic in the oil and gas industry. There is higher exposure of contractors to undesirable incidents and supplier selection is a multicriteria decision problem (MCDM). A fuzzy-TOPSIS method was employed in the evaluation of three suppliers regarding [...] Read more.
Supply chain management is an emerging topic in the oil and gas industry. There is higher exposure of contractors to undesirable incidents and supplier selection is a multicriteria decision problem (MCDM). A fuzzy-TOPSIS method was employed in the evaluation of three suppliers regarding four HSE criteria. This method was applied in a case study of the oil and gas industry involving a contractor bidding process. Results reinforced that fuzzy-TOPSIS is a versatile and suitable method for supplier selection problems, with low computational complexity and promoting a better user experience. This method contributes to greater effectiveness and agility in the selection processes of suppliers regarding HSE management. The fuzzy-TOPSIS model is suitable for supplier selection problems and some of the benefits of applying this method are that it allows the attribution weights according to the level of importance of each criterion and considers the complexity, subjectivity, and uncertainty of the decision process. One has determined that it was essential to have a robust and consistent process for weighting the criteria and defining the most appropriate linguistic variables. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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28 pages, 13493 KiB  
Article
Smart City Ranking System: A Supporting Tool to Manage Migration Trends for Australian Cities
by Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq, Maha Hussein and Nitin Muttil
Infrastructures 2021, 6(3), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6030037 - 8 Mar 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4398
Abstract
A key driver of Australia’s economic development is through promoting migration. A strong bottleneck to achieve the targets is a disproportional concentration of population in the metropolitan cities. To avoid congestion in these cities, emphasis is being given at the government level to [...] Read more.
A key driver of Australia’s economic development is through promoting migration. A strong bottleneck to achieve the targets is a disproportional concentration of population in the metropolitan cities. To avoid congestion in these cities, emphasis is being given at the government level to promote the regional cities. With different city ranking systems, this study tries to identify linkage between the city ranking and people’s preference to live there. The proposed ranking system uses six components, namely, economy, mobility, environment, people, living, and governance. A comparison is done between the ranking systems by first assigning the same weightage to the six components and then assigning different weightages based on people’s preferences. This study considered 112 Australian cities, which were ranked by considering their performance based on the non-weighted and weighted parameters. Analytical Hierarchy Process is then used to assign the priorities/preferences of the components, factors, and indicators. The study also incorporates clustering technique to address the issue of missing data/information that is a typical problem with small cities where missing data is a common issue. The results of the comparison demonstrate that assigning weightage to ranking parameters makes the city ranking closer to the preference of people to live in a city. It is also recommended that the city ranking system and urban governance should have closer connection to each other. The lowest performing city ranking parameter should be given higher preferences in urban management and development plans. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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19 pages, 2023 KiB  
Article
A Study on the Integration of Resilience and Smart City Concepts in Urban Systems
by Anastasia Tzioutziou and Yiannis Xenidis
Infrastructures 2021, 6(2), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6020024 - 4 Feb 2021
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 4628
Abstract
The continuous growth of cities brings out various concerns for improved development and management of the multifaceted urban systems, including those of resilience and smartness. Despite the many significant efforts in the research field, both notions remain changeable, thus retaining the lack of [...] Read more.
The continuous growth of cities brings out various concerns for improved development and management of the multifaceted urban systems, including those of resilience and smartness. Despite the many significant efforts in the research field, both notions remain changeable, thus retaining the lack of commonly accepted conceptual and terminological frameworks. The paper’s research goals are to designate the current direct and indirect links in the conceptualizations and research trends of the resilience and smart city frameworks and to prove the potential of the conceptual convergence between them in the context of urban systems. The application of a semi-systematic literature review, including bibliometric evidence and followed by content analysis, has led to the observation that as the resilience discourse opens up to embrace other dimensions, including technology, the smart city research turns its interest to the perspective of urban protection. Therefore, both concepts share the goal for urban sustainability realized through specific capacities and processes and operationalized with the deployment of technology. The paper’s findings suggest that the conceptual and operational foundations of these two concepts could support the emergence of an integrated framework. Such a prospect acknowledges the instrumental role of the smart city approach in the pursuit of urban resilience and unfolds a new model for sustainable city management and development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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18 pages, 3333 KiB  
Article
Automated Construction Progress and Quality Monitoring for Commercial Buildings with Unmanned Aerial Systems: An Application Study from Switzerland
by Clemens Kielhauser, Raul Renteria Manzano, Jeffrey J. Hoffman and Bryan T. Adey
Infrastructures 2020, 5(11), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures5110098 - 11 Nov 2020
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4685
Abstract
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs), which have become a key tool in remote sensing in recent years, have also rapidly entered the practice of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO). This paper presents an application study of a methodology for monitoring construction progress and [...] Read more.
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs), which have become a key tool in remote sensing in recent years, have also rapidly entered the practice of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO). This paper presents an application study of a methodology for monitoring construction progress and quality using real-time data from a commercial building during the execution phase and the results of an analysis of the costs and benefits of monitoring construction progress and quality with and without a UAS. The methodology used consists of three parts: (1) automated data collection at the construction site, (2) data processing, in which the collected data are processed to generate the outputs necessary for the data analysis, and (3) data analysis to monitor construction progress and quality. The method is based on the detection of structural elements, combined with four principles: the sectional approach, the calculation of the concrete volume, the height-distance measurement, and the detection of defects by visual comparisons. The cost-benefit analysis considers three cases: monitoring of progress (1) by the construction company using the UAS, (2) by external contractors using the UAS, and (3) by the construction company without using the UAS. We show that the in-house operation of the UAS is associated with medium costs. However, a return on investment can be achieved quickly if the strategy for the operation of the UAS is clearly defined. In summary, the use of a UAS for the automated monitoring of the construction progress and quality of commercial buildings is practicable, which can quickly lead to a return on investment. We also show that there is great potential for further improvements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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Review

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13 pages, 242 KiB  
Review
Adopting International Learnings to Improve the Performance of New Zealand’s Infrastructure Supply Chain
by Jarrod Richards and Mostafa Seifan
Infrastructures 2021, 6(9), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6090133 - 15 Sep 2021
Viewed by 1982
Abstract
Growing interest in the productivity of the infrastructure sector has increased due to cost and time overruns in major projects. In this regard, many developed countries have failed to implement a framework to ensure that project success is met through newly available technologies [...] Read more.
Growing interest in the productivity of the infrastructure sector has increased due to cost and time overruns in major projects. In this regard, many developed countries have failed to implement a framework to ensure that project success is met through newly available technologies and business initiatives to ensure the user is the most important beneficiary. This review paper provides a review of international research relating to the life cycle, firm-level operations, and collaborative business models of infrastructure projects. The review initially identified the importance that understanding key phases and procurement models has on the efficiency of a project’s life cycle. A key indicator of the likelihood of good performance across a supply chain lies with the ability to understand the efficiencies of the firm-level operations. The literature has noted that successful projects are able to perform well across an organizations end-to-end involvement and be able to share risks among mature organizations. This paper provides a review of how a collaborative business model can benefit a project lifecycle and firm-level operations. The global research currently has identified the need for a collaborative approach that reduces the risk within all organizations through common goals, effective end-to-end project systems and consideration of the entire project lifecycle. The paper provides a detailed review of international practices in an infrastructure supply chain that have the potential to address New Zealand’s infrastructure project failures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
20 pages, 2596 KiB  
Review
Image-Based Crack Detection Methods: A Review
by Hafiz Suliman Munawar, Ahmed W. A. Hammad, Assed Haddad, Carlos Alberto Pereira Soares and S. Travis Waller
Infrastructures 2021, 6(8), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6080115 - 14 Aug 2021
Cited by 159 | Viewed by 17188
Abstract
Annually, millions of dollars are spent to carry out defect detection in key infrastructure including roads, bridges, and buildings. The aftermath of natural disasters like floods and earthquakes leads to severe damage to the urban infrastructure. Maintenance operations that follow for the damaged [...] Read more.
Annually, millions of dollars are spent to carry out defect detection in key infrastructure including roads, bridges, and buildings. The aftermath of natural disasters like floods and earthquakes leads to severe damage to the urban infrastructure. Maintenance operations that follow for the damaged infrastructure often involve a visual inspection and assessment of their state to ensure their functional and physical integrity. Such damage may appear in the form of minor or major cracks, which gradually spread, leading to ultimate collapse or destruction of the structure. Crack detection is a very laborious task if performed via manual visual inspection. Many infrastructure elements need to be checked regularly and it is therefore not feasible as it will require significant human resources. This may also result in cases where cracks go undetected. A need, therefore, exists for performing automatic defect detection in infrastructure to ensure its effectiveness and reliability. Using image processing techniques, the captured or scanned images of the infrastructure parts can be analyzed to identify any possible defects. Apart from image processing, machine learning methods are being increasingly applied to ensure better performance outcomes and robustness in crack detection. This paper provides a review of image-based crack detection techniques which implement image processing and/or machine learning. A total of 30 research articles have been collected for the review which is published in top tier journals and conferences in the past decade. A comprehensive analysis and comparison of these methods are performed to highlight the most promising automated approaches for crack detection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructures)
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