Special Issue on Sustainable Construction Materials

The construction materials industry is a major user of the world’s resources. While enormous progress has been made towards sustainability, the scope and opportunities for further improvements are significant. The focus of this conference series was to highlight case studies and research that show new and innovative ways of achieving sustainability of construction materials and technologies.

The Third International Conference on sustainable construction materials and technologies (SCMT3) was conducted by Coventry University, The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Center for By-products Utilization (UWM-CBU), and the Japan Concrete Institute on August 18–21, 2013, at the Kyoto Research Park, Kyoto, Japan. A total of 390 papers were presented and 450 delegates attended.

SCMT3 was planned after the two successful events in Coventry, U.K., in 2007, which had over 160 delegates, and Ancona, Italy, in 2010, which had over 270 delegates. These conferences were attended by government officials, engineers from government and private industry, engineering faculty and students, materials suppliers, construction companies, and others. While the first and second conferences highlighted current practice and research in sustainable construction materials, they also showed that more research and implementation activities remain to be done in this area. Therefore, the third international conference took place in August 2013 to continue this technology transfer effort.

The conference was sponsored by ACI, ASCE, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE), Japan Concrete Institute (JCI), and RILEM in addition to Coventry University and UWM-CBU.

The awards committee for the conference selected papers to be considered for publication in the ASCE journal. The nine papers contained in this special issue were selected from those presented at the conference. They were reviewed in accordance with standard ASCE publication guidelines.

The papers cover a wide range of topics that contribute to the sustainability of structures. There is an increasing understanding that durability is the key contributor to sustainability due to the high environmental impact of maintenance, repairs, and replacement. One paper presents the effect of temperature on high-performance concrete and another paper the effect of wetting and drying cycles on Thaumasite formation in cement mortars. Six papers relate to the constituent materials in concrete and cement replacements. There is also one paper on recycling of concrete.

All selected papers were reviewed by three anonymous reviewers. We would like to take this opportunity to give our thanks to the referees for their critical reviews, advice, support, and encouragement.

The next conference, SCMT4, is planned for Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., in August 2016. Details can be found at http://www.scmt.org.uk.

Finally, we would like to give our special thanks to Professor Antonio Nanni for his support and for giving us the opportunity to produce this special issue.