Manuscript Topics

In modern technology of concrete composites, a great interest of scientists and practical engineers concerns the possibility of modifying the microstructure of cement-based materials by using active mineral additives and admixtures. These include natural pozzolans, siliceous and calcareous fly ash, silica fume, granulated blast furnace slag, limepowder, and other materials that replace the cement binder in the composition of the concrete mix. On the other hand, the use of nanoparticles has been integral to the development of improved construction and building materials in recent years. It should be noted that there is the increasingly used potential of nanotechnology, in which concrete nanoadditives are used included in its composition, such as nanosilica, carbon nanotubes, and active chemical nanoadmixtures. Both traditional concrete additives and nanoadditives that are part of modern cement matrix
Composites are referred to as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). The use of SCMs in the production of concrete composites promotes sustainability in the concrete industry. Moreover, advanced nanomaterials and modern nanotechnology, in general, play an increasingly important role in the field of concrete structures. However, these materials clearly change the structure, mechanical parameters of the material and its brittleness. It also affects an important property of concrete, i.e. fracture toughnes.
Fracture toughness is an extremely important parameter determining the properties of a given material, especially of a construction material. The material constants determined in compressive and tensile tests are not enough because often materials with high mechanical properties (high strength) have low fracture toughness. In this case, such materials have limited usefulness as structural materials, especially in terms of fatigue loads in a given structure.
Cracks are an evident threat to the structure as they significantly reduce its strength. The size of cracks formed in construction elements can be presented in the form of a function of operating time or number of load cycles. As time passes, the current strength of the elements changes. After some time of operation, its value decreases to the level at which the construction element is not able to transfer accidental overloads occurring during operation. Such a situation may lead to the destruction of a particular element or even the entire structure, leading to a catastrophe. If the failure has not occurred yet, the crack propagates until the value of the structure current strength decreases to the level at which the nominal load of the element leads to its destruction. In practice, this means that every construction element of the structure has a period of safe operation, in which the probability of catastrophic failure should be kept as low as possible.
To this end, experimental research, mathematical desriptions and numerical analyzes have been conducted for many years to obtain concrete composites with the highest fracture toughness. Recently, material modification of concrete with mineral additives and chemical admixtures, as well as nanomaterials has gained special development. More and more advanced techniques are also used to detect and analyze the development of cracks in the material, e.g. digital image correlation method (DIC), acoustic emission (AE), computed tomography (CT). The increasingly advanced modeling of fracture processes in composites with brittle matrixes (e.g. by using the X-FEM method) allows a more in-depth understanding of fracture processes occurring in the material structure, especially at the interfaces of the composite.
Therefore it is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue mainly focused on novel materials that modify the structure of concrete to improve its fracture toughness, and new devices and measuring techniques for analyzing cracks in concrete. Articles on modeling cracks in concrete will also be appreciated, as well as publications related to the assessment of the microstructure of damaged composites.
The topics of interest include but are not limited to:
• Mechanical properties, durability and sustainability of concretes incorporating nanomaterials
• Improvement of fracture toughness of concrete as a result of using nanomaterials modification
• Linear and nonlinear fracture mechanics in the description of the fracture processes of concrete composites and concrete structures made with the use of additives and nano-additives
• Experimental methods in fracture mechanics of concrete composites
• Mathematical analyses and constitutive relations in the description of deformations of copmosites
• Modeling of fracture processes
• The use of nanotechnology to improve the fracture toughness of materials
• Cementitious composites containing nanoparticles
• Other materials using nanotechnology

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