Smart Paving and Infrastructure Materials for Longer Service Life

The special collection on Smart Paving and Infrastructure Materials for Longer Service Life is available in the ASCE Library (https://ascelibrary.org/jmcee7/smart_paving_infrastructure_service_life).

The guest editors are as follows:

The paving and infrastructure materials industry is a major user of the world’s resources. While enormous progress has been made toward sustainability, the scope and opportunities for smart paving and infrastructure materials and for longer service life are significant. The focus of this special issue is to highlight case studies and research that show new and innovative ways of achieving smart paving and infrastructure materials and technologies.

The special collection selected 21 papers to be considered for publication of the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. The papers cover a wide range of topics that contribute to smart paving and infrastructure materials and sustainability of pavements. There is an increasing understanding that utilizing smart materials is a key contributor to sustainability and longer service life because of the high environmental impact of maintenance and replacement. Among the 21 selected papers, 11 relate to the topic of bituminous or flexible pavements, six of which directly investigate one type of smart asphalt material or additive, including a novel cement grout asphalt composite, a prefabricated flexible conductive composite overlay, a silicone-based warm mix additive, the $\mathrm{g}\text{-}{\mathrm{C}}_3{\mathrm{N}}_4/{\mathrm{TiO}}_2$ photocatalyst for emulsified asphalt, a rollable asphalt mixture, and a naphthenic oil on styrene butadiene styrene (SBS)-modified asphalt binder. The rest discuss the sustainability of asphalt pavements from varying aspects, including the effect of oxidative aging on the dynamic moduli of hot mix asphalt (HMA) and the self-healing behavior of asphalt binder. There are eight papers related to the topic of geomaterials (including bases and subbases), which investigate the engineering characteristics of various geomaterials, including an anisotropically consolidated sand, geosynthetics, Wisconsin aggregates, a granite residual subgrade, pavement base materials, wicking fabrics, a compacted silty clay, and a subgrade soil with superabsorbent polymers (SAPs). There are two papers related to the topic of the cementitious and brittle matrix (including all forms of concrete), one of which investigates using sintered magnetically separated fly ash as microwave-heating aggregate, and the other discusses the salt-frost resistance performance of airfield 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.

Finally, we would like to give our special thanks to Professor Antonio Nanni as well as the ASCE journal staff for their support and for giving us the opportunity to produce this special collection.