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The Annex L of the new Eurocode – 2 gathers -for the first time- provisions for the design of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) structures. This response to the necessity of the construction sector for provisions and regulations of this composite material within the European space and this Annex is supported by the solid background derived from consistent research and experiences carried out along the last two decades. The existence of these design provisions could both favour competitiveness and enhance sustainability performance within the construction sector since new concrete reinforcement alternatives could be considered while ensuring the structural reliability level accepted for traditional reinforced concrete structures. This paper is aimed to cover -not exhaustively- all those features concerning SFRC included into the EC-2 and complement those -when considered necessary- with scientific literature.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Architectural Engineering and Design Management on 2022, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17452007.2022.2060931. Twenty-first-century population growth is raising the need for more land space in urban areas and this has led to the construction of high-rise buildings, reducing horizontal urban development and making construction of residential high-rise buildings (RHB) a necessity in major cities around the world. In this regard, urban density and high-rise construction are key factors when determining a city’s sustainability and the liveability of urban areas. Sustainability indicators were identified in previous research and quantification has proven to be a useful tool for RHB design. This paper provides an overview of the various sustainability factors applied to RHB design. The paper also compiles information on the sustainability strategy, description of RHB issues and how this type of building can affect urban design. Some strategies may improve the natural environment such as incorporating green spaces, combining living, working and leisure activities, providing facilities for children and the elderly such as playgrounds and reasonably natural settings, ease of access to public transport, road networks and shopping facilities and so forth. The research is based on a descriptive approach and it analyses previous studies. The findings show that the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainable development (SD) should be considered to implement sustainability in RHBs. Previous literature reviews on RHBs considered social aspects in less detail. The author Maria del Mar Casanovas-Rubio is a Serra Húnter Fellow. The author Bahareh Maleki would like to thank the FPI-UPC grants

The postcracking capacity of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) mainly depends on the content, material, and geometry of the fibers considered. Even though the general influence of these factors on FRC behavior has been extensively addressed, the uncertainty of the FRC performance prediction along with the variability of the results still poses a challenging issue that needs to be solved to encourage the use of FRC for design and construction purposes. In this line, a database including the results of the flexural residual strength obtained from different experimental programs combined with the results of previous studies has been gathered and analyzed herein to obtain general correlations and trends providing additional information about the influence of the fibers in FRC behavior, these meant to serve for initial design stages (e.g., make decisions on the type and amount of fibers based on technical and economical requirements). The results are analyzed distinguishing between the fiber material, the fiber shape, the aspect ratio and tensile strength. The results presented herein may provide valuable information on the initial prediction of the residual strength of FRC to fully take advantage of the mechanical properties of the material. The authors from UPC wish to express their acknowledgment to the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain for the financial support received under the scope of the projects BIA2016-78742-C2-1-R and PID2019-108978RB-C32.

Hybrid reinforced technology (combination of steel reinforcing bars and fibers) can be considered as a competitive alternative to the already existing solutions for the construction of column-supported flat slabs. Constructed hybrid-reinforced buildings prove that hybrid solutions have sufficient bearing capacity to maintain structural integrity despite being exposed to high stress levels, thereby providing a beneficial solution in terms of toughness, ductility, and sustainability performance. However, the lack of design-oriented recommendations based on the accepted limit state format for dealing with both serviceability and ultimate limit states slows down the wider implementation of this technology. Considering the above-mentioned, this article presents a simplified design-oriented method that covers the evaluation of the structural response of hybrid reinforced concrete column-supported flat slabs in terms of flexural strength, cracking, and instantaneous deformations. Two hybrid reinforced alternatives for a given flat slab are studied by means of the proposed approach. Furthermore, a nonlinear finite element analysis is carried out in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed simplified method. Based on the achieved results, its suitable accuracy and precision can be pointed out. This outcome may motivate current practitioners to consider hybrid reinforced concrete solutions as a possible alternative during the design of residential and office buildings. Departament d'Innovació, Universitats i Empresa, Generalitat de Catalunya, Grant/Award Number: 2018 DI 77; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Grant/Award Number: CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32)

In a recent study, Rong et al.1 investigate the prediction of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) creep using back-propagation neural network and support vector machine. For this purpose, the authors compiled a database of experimental results on the creep of RAC on which they first tested five analytical RAC creep prediction models2-6 and concluded that the performance of all five models is inadequate, thereby justifying the use of a back-propagation neural network and a support vector machine. The main argument for declaring the performance of the five analytical models inadequate is the analysis of “performance indices” of the correlation coefficient (R), mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), and integral absolute error (IAE). The found ranges of values were 0.45–0.55 for R, 0.41–0.64 for MAE, 0.33–0.70 for MSE, and 0.33–0.53 for IAE. Nonetheless, there are errors and uncertainties regarding the study that are pointed out herein, some methodological and some formal.

Purpose The main objective of this study is to consider how to benefit efficiently from the significant potential of humanitarian operations by individuals. For this purpose, this study aims to assess failure factors in humanitarian supply chain operations after the Kermanshah earthquake considering the role of all parties, focusing on individuals who did not wish to work with formal organisations on the whole. In the aftermath of the Kermanshah earthquake, which occurred on 12 November 2017, improvised groups of Iranian civilians from all over the country played an important role in humanitarian supply chain operations as individuals. Although most of these groups sincerely intended to help the affected society, victims could not benefit properly from these significant potential humanitarian actions. On the contrary, these potential actions caused some issues during humanitarian operations, such as blocking roads, inappropriate last-mile distribution, wasting resources and so on. Design/methodology/approach This research study considers mixed methods, including an on-site survey, semi-structured interviewing and a questionnaire designed for statistical analyses. The analysis included 140 responses to the questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with 32 affected families, interviews with 5 emergency managers from the Housing Foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and on-site survey reports. Findings This study presents a framework for humanitarian supply chain management to deal with future disasters in the same area or areas with similar characteristics to the case study. In general, the results of this study demonstrate that the nature of humanitarian supply chain operations makes it impossible to consider that these operations are free of challenges. However, several influential factors, such as training humanitarian actors and integrated management, might considerably increase the efficiency of humanitarian operations by individuals. Originality/value This study highlights the influential factors of inappropriate humanitarian operations by individuals, derived from an analysis of the Kermanshah case and literature review. The authors suggest a framework to benefit from the significant potential of individuals with wide-ranging experiences and proficiency, for future cases similar to the case study.

Incorporating eco-friendly substances obtained from recycled resources and industrial by-products is gaining increased acceptance among building materials. In this context, a cementitious matrix containing supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) reinforced by recycled fibers may be a promising solution from both a durability and sustainability perspective. This study presents an extensive experimental program carried out on a cement- based composite with Silica Fume (SF), reinforced with recycled textile waste (TW) nonwoven fabric. Initially, the mechanical strength (compression and flexure) of the Portland cement paste substituted with variable SF content (0%–30%) was characterized. Based on the results, laminate plates having six TW fabric layers impregnated with three different cement pastes

Partially replacing ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with low-carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) in blended cement concrete (BCC) is perceived as the most promising route for sustainable concrete production. Despite having a lower environmental impact, BCC could exhibit performance inferior to OPC in design-governing functional properties. Hence, concrete manufacturers and scientists have been seeking methods to predict the performance of BCC mixes in order to reduce the cost and time of experimentally testing all alternatives. Machine learning algorithms have been proven in other fields for treating large amounts of data drawing meaningful relationships between data accurately. However, the existing prediction models in the literature come short in covering a wide range of SCMs and/or functional properties. Considering this, in this study, a non-linear multi-layered machine learning regression model was created to predict the performance of a BCC mix for slump, strength, and resistance to carbonation and chloride ingress based on any of five prominent SCMs: fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, lime powder and calcined clay. A database from>150 peer-reviewed sources containing>1650 data points was created to train and test the model. The statistical performance was found to be comparable to that of existing models (R = 0.94–0.97). For the first time, the model, Pre-bcc, was also made available online for users to conduct their own prediction studies.

As one of the main and largest components, facades make a determining contribution to the sustainability performance of the whole building. Thus, selecting the optimal wall system is a key challenge for designers, especially on multi-material facades. To meet the requirements (i.e., cost, energy performance, aesthetics, maintainability) determined by stakeholders (i.e., client, authorities, designers), this selection involves many variables, several of which are subjective and uncertain, leading to a challenging decision-making process. In this context, this research intended to design and calibrate a new sustainability-oriented approach for selecting multi-material facade systems, and this is the first existing model for this purpose to the authors' best knowledge. The model couples MIVES and the Knapsack algorithm to generate sets of multiple-material facades, once the boundary conditions are established, and select according to sustainability indexes. A building in Barcelona with a multi-material facade was analysed by using the proposed approach to: (1) determine the optimal combination of materials and wall systems to configure the facade, based on both local technical and legislation requirements; and (2) validate the results of the model. In this regard, the results proved that most solutions with the highest sustainability index consisted of a wall with 10 cm concrete panel, 4 cm Rockwool insulation, 7 cm interior Rockwool insulation, and 2 layers of gypsum board. This was the combination implemented for the building object in the study case. The model can be adapted to different boundary conditions, regional regulations and stakeholders’ preferences. This approach is being introduced within Barcelona Council to analyse the sustainability of existing facades for the purposes of renovation and new building projects.

Within the building construction sector, fiber cement boards have attracted interest as facade cladding materials in the last ten years, especially those that incorporate –for reinforcing purposes– natural and/or recycled synthetic fibers (i.e, from the textile industry). So far, the design-governing parameters of facade cladding panels have been mechanical strength, durability, constructability, aesthetics, insulation capacity, and fire resistance. From the sustainability perspective, the impact of the facade on the economic and energy efficiency performance is most often the parameter that leads the decision-making process. Within this context, the quantification of the sustainability performance of the facade –accounting for economic, environmental, and social indicators– is unfrequently carried out in design and project phases, this being attributed to the lack of methodologies that allow considering and quantifying some relevant indicators representative of the facade sustainability performance. As consequence, decisions made based on solely economic and on some of the environmental indicators might lead to solutions with lower sustainability performance than that required (or expected). Recycled textile waste fabric-reinforced cement board as a facade-cladding material for building envelopes is the focus of this research. In order to characterize the fire resistance, and thermal and acoustic insulation –as relevant serviceability parameters– of this material, an experimental program was carried out. Likewise, the sustainability performance of this facade-cladding is assessed through a method based on the Integrated Value Model for Sustainability Assessment (MIVES). This multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model relies on the value function concept and the multi-disciplinary participation of experts to identify and quantify the relevant indicators of the facade sustainability performance and the relative importance of indicators and requirements. The MIVES-based model generated for this research can be straightforwardly used for assessing the sustainability performance of facade-cladding techniques made of any material and for any type of building (and location). The application of the MIVES model led to the sustainability index of this new material for facade-cladding ranging from 0.68 to 0.71 (/1.00) for different weighting scenarios. The authors express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness for the financial support received under the scope of the projects CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32) and RECYBUILDMAT (PID2019-108067RB-I00).

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [ Deng, Z, Liu, X, Chen, P, et al. Basalt-polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete for durable and sustainable pipe production. Part 1: Experimental program. Structural Concrete. 2022; 23: 311– 327. https://doi.org/10.1002/suco.202000759], which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/suco.202000759. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. An experimental program consisting in producing and testing reinforced concrete pipes (RCPs) under the three-edge bearing tests considering different types of reinforcement was carried out. Four types of RCPs were produced, these reinforced with: (1) polypropylene macrofibers; (2) basalt microfibers; (3) combination of both (hybrid reinforcement); and (4) plain concrete. The analysis of the crack patterns and both service and ultimate mechanical responses allowed concluding that the use of fibers do not lead to an effective increase of the first cracking load; however, both types of fibers allowed a better crack width control respect to the standard RCP. In this regard, basalt microfiber reinforced concrete led to a better response caused by concentrated loads (jacketing) whilst polypropylene macrofibers increased the concrete pipe performance in terms of bearing capacity and flexural crack control. The hybrid fiber reinforced concrete was found to be the most suitable alternative for increasing the load bearing capacity and the crack width control for service loads. These incipient experimental results permit to conclude that this type of hybrid basalt-polypropylene fiber reinforced concretes are an interesting alternative to traditional steel-cage RCPs. This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1504802), Natural Science Foundation Project of Chongqing, Chongqing Science and Technology Commission (cstc2018jscxmszdX0071), Postgraduate Research Innovation Project of Chongqing (CYS19005, CYS18026). In addition, Prof. Albert de la Fuente also wants to express his gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the financial support received under the scope of the project CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32).

The need to produce more sustainable concrete is proving imminent given the rising environmental concerns facing the industry. Blended cement concrete, based on any of the prominent supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash, ground granulated blast-furnace slag, silica fume, calcined clay and limestone powder, have proven to be the best candidates for sustainable concrete mixes. However, a reliable sustainability measure includes not only the environmental impact, but also the economic and functional ones. Within these five SCMs, their environmental, economic and functional properties are found to be conflicting at times, making a clear judgement on what would be the optimum mix not a straightforward path. A recent framework and tool for concrete sustainability assessment ECO2, sets a reliable methodology for including the functional performance of a concrete mix depending on project-based specifications. Therefore, in this study, a recently published regression model, Pre-bcc was used to predict the functional properties of a wide grid search of potentially suitable blended cement concrete mixes. Hence, an open access novel genetic algorithm tool “Opt-bcc” was developed and used to optimize the sustainability score of these mixes based on a set selection of user-defined project-specific functional criteria. The optimized mixes using the Opt-bcc model for each strength class were compared against the mix design proposed by other optimization models from the literature and were found to be at least 70% cheaper and of 30% less environmental impact.

As a means to improve sustainability in the construction sector, the 3D-printed concrete technologies (3DPCTs) are emerging as potential alternatives to traditional construction for reinforced concrete structural components. Traditional technologies are still used in most architecture and civil engineering applications, although D-shape technology for 3DPCTs (DS-3DPCT) has proven technically feasible for producing pilot structural elements such as footbridges. These pilots have been contextualized within research and industrial frameworks, in which relevant technical information is confidential and cost and environmental performance related conclusions are still to be validated and reported. Moreover, scarce research has been conducted on sustainability performance by DS-3DPCT, and that carried out is primarily incipient and focused on identifying governing indicators and some specific non-generalizable quantifications. Former studies ack dealing with sustainability by DS-3DPCT from a holistic and integrated perspective, which requires quantifying and coupling the three main economic, environmental and social pillars. This research project comprehensively develops a sustainability-oriented decision-making approach for assessing construction technologies for footbridges based on MIVES and Delphi method. The Castilla-La Mancha park DS-3DPCT footbridge constructed by ACCIONA S.A. in 2016 in Madrid was the representative case study to validate this approach applicability. The results quantify the case study as sustainable, with excellent values for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, generation of qualified jobs, benefits to brand, occupational risk prevention, and design flexibility. However, this DS-3DPCT requires more maturity in the technology to improve its economic values. This approach range of application might be extended to other structural typologies by introducing -when necessary-other relevant indicators and weights’ distributions. Peer Reviewed Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::8 - Treball Decent i Creixement Econòmic Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum Responsables Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i Infraestructura

Selecting the best site location for temporary housing (TH) is one of the most critical decision-making processes in the aftermath of disasters. Many spatial variables and multi-criteria indicator problems are involved in the decision-making analysis. Incorrect treatment of these components often led to failure in previous post-disaster recovery programmes. Wrong decisions caused short- and long-term negative impacts on the environment and people as well as wasting capital spending. In this regard, this research paper aims to present a novel multi-criteria decision-making approach that helps decision makers select optimal site locations to consider spatial and sustainability-related aims by assessing numerous alternatives. This new model is based on combining a knapsack algorithm and the integrated value model for sustainability assessment (MIVES) to derive optimal alternatives. This model makes it possible to objectively quantify sustainability indicators (economic, environmental, and social aspects) and derive satisfaction indices for each site (or set of sites) in terms of TH location. The model is designed to receive and filter data from a geographic information system (GIS). Using this model in future post-disaster recovery programs is believed to increase stakeholders’ satisfaction and maximise the sustainability associated with the selection.

Fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) has been proved to be a competitive solution for structural purposes. Extensive research has highlighted the benefits of adding fibers on the post-cracking strength, reduced crack spacing and crack width, and improved durability, among others. However, these aspects are related to serviceability limit states, and significant work remains to be done in terms of ultimate limit state behavior of FRC members. As recent publications have emphasized, reinforced concrete beams with low reinforcement ratios may result in a reduction of deformation capacity and, hence, to a loss of ductility. To further investigate this topic, this paper presents the results of a numerical parametric study of simply and continuous supported hybrid-reinforced concrete (HRC) beams made with different amounts of fibers and reinforcement ratios. The deformation, rotational, and moment redistribution capacity of those were assessed by means of a finite-element model previously calibrated using experimental results available in the literature. The results showed that there is a significant reduction of rotation capacity and moment redistribution for lightly reinforced (hybrid) members. Finally, the paper contains practical recommendations in terms of minimum reinforcement ratios that guarantee adequate rotation and redistribution capacity of HRC members. As such, the results of this study can provide a contribution toward more reliable structural designs of HRC members. The authors express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness for the financial support received under the scope of the project CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32). Likewise, the first author acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University for providing support through the PhD Industrial Fellowship (DI-17-09390) in collaboration with Smart Engineering Ltd. (UPC's Spin-Off).

Fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) is increasingly being used in elements with high structural responsibility, the constructed FRC column-supported flat slabs (CSFSs, hereinafter) with partial or even total substitution of reinforcing steel bars being a supporting evidence for that statement. These pioneer experiences provide encouraging results with respect to resource optimization and construction time reduction without jeopardising the structural reliability. Despite such promising achievements, the use of FRC in CSFSs is still limited in the building sector. To provide an additional impulse for the use of FRC, a comprehensive comparison between FRC and traditional reinforced concrete (RC) technologies for CSFSs in terms of execution procedure and overall costs is needed. With this in mind, an industrial-oriented study was carried out with the main objective of elaborating a simplified method for the preliminary comparison of RC and FRC solutions. This method permits to assess the major amount of the required reinforcement (flexural reinforcement) followed by an evaluation of the time saving effect due to the partial or total substitution of reinforcing steel bars by fibres. For this purpose and for the sake of generalization, several databases were examined and 33 interviews with experts on in situ construction were conducted so that a wide range of productivity rates and other particularities could be identified. Based on the proposed method, a case study was analysed in order to indicate the potential direct costs (materials + labour) for a number of RC and FRC solutions using data from the examined databases and conducted interviews. The results reflect an increment of direct costs for both fibre and hybrid (fibre + reinforcing steel bars, HFRC) solutions; however, these increment can be compensated by the reduction of the construction period and, as a consequence, time-dependent costs (i.e., preliminaries, equipment costs, overheads, and finance costs). The outcomes of this research are meant to provide support to designers and construction planners with regard to the suitability of using FRC for CSFSs. This study was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the scope of project CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32). The first author, personally, thanks the Department of Enterprise and Education of Catalan Government for providing support through the PhD Industrial Fellowship (2018 DI 77) in collaboration with Smart Engineering Ltd. (UPC’s Spin-Off).

Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) is increasingly being used in the construction industry providing structural, technological and economic benefits. However, this relatively new material has not demonstrated its full potential due to presence of certain aspects related to both concrete mix and structural design that should be further investigated. Specifically, pile-supported flat slabs is an interesting field of application of the SFRC; however, there are still aspects needing attention and solutions in order to make this structural application more attractive from both economic and technical points of view, these being (among others): the effect of new types of fibres on material properties and more insight regarding the structural capacity at both serviceability and ultimate limit state. Complementing the existing knowledge in aforementioned areas might lead to considerable expansion of SFRC application in elements with high structural responsibility. To this end, an extensive experimental program was carried out within the industrial-oriented project eFIB that contained characterization of 15 concrete mixes with different fibre types and its content (up to 120 kg/m3) and construction of 10×12 m SFRC flat slab. This prototype was loaded in different stages with permanent and life-loads in order to study both cracking and time deformation responses; the structure was eventually led to failure. The results of the described research are presented and discussed herein. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the financial support in the scope of the project eFIB (reference: RTC-2016-5236-5) which was carried out along with SACYR Ingeniería e Infraestruturas. The first author also thanks the Department of Enterprise and Education of Catalan Government for providing support through the PhD Industrial Fellowship (2018 DI 77) in collaboration with Smart Engineering Ltd.

Application of Fibre Reinforced Concrete (FRC) in pile supported flat slabs is definitely challenge in term of a structural application of this material. Possible substitution of traditional reinforcement by steel fibres in the concrete mix drew attention of researchers due to clear benefits that could be provided by this technological alternative. This statement has been already proven by existing examples, in which during the construction, the optimization of resources, reduction of execution time and required labor force was highlighted. Nevertheless, considering the knowledge base associated with structural behaviour of FRC, it has been confirmed that hybrid solutions consisting in FRC with a moderate residual flexural tensile strength combined with conventional reinforcement placed in those zones where the higher bending moments are expected can be even more attractive from the technical point of view. Taking into account the abovementioned, the potential application of Hybrid Reinforced Concrete (HRC) for elevated slabs was studied. By modifying the ratio fibre/rebar content for different structural geometries, a parametric study was carried out in order to evaluate various solutions in terms of structural capacity in accordance with the requirements of Ultimate Limit State The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the financial support in the scope of the project eFIB (reference: RTC-2016-5236-5) which was carried out along with SACYR Ingeniería e Infraestruturas. The first author also thanks the Department of Enterprise and Education of Catalan Government for providing support through the PhD Industrial Fellowship (2018 DI 77) in collaboration with Smart Engineering Ltd.

The building sector has a major economic, environmental, and social impact on society; hence, it is crucial to promote sustainable construction practice. The facade is one of the largest main components of a building, which could strongly contribute to the sustainability performance for the whole building. Previous studies started defining tools to assess facade sustainability, although relevant indicators were dismissed or, if considered, they were rather subjectively quantified. Likewise, most existing tools omit stakeholder satisfaction in the assessment process for optimal facade systems. In this regard, this paper presents a new systematic approach based on the Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment (MIVES) for holistic sustainability assessment of building facade systems by integrating stakeholders’ satisfaction in the decision-making process. To this end, for the first time to the authors’ best knowledge, the most representative and discriminative indicators for quantifying facade sustainability were identified to define a new approach to minimize subjectivity in the decision-making process and, consequently, to ease the task of decision makers when choosing and designing facade alternatives for new buildings and rehabilitation. This approach is validated and initially applied to assess the six most common residential facade systems in Barcelona, Spain. Results indicate that these building elements have low to medium sustainability performance.

A design-oriented numerical model for the analysis of RC, FRC, and RC-FRC tunnel sections exposed to fire with different spalling parameters is presented. The numerical model is conceived in two steps: the first is the determination of the temperature field in the cross-section exposed to fire according to the spalling parameters; and the second is the determination of the bearing capacity of sections based on the thermal field in the section. At last, a parametric study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the fire curve, the spalling parameters, the reinforcement type, and the rebar’s concrete cover on the bearing capacity of the sections. The results showed that the use of FRC as total or partial substitution to RC mitigates the fire-related reduction in the bearing capacity of the sections. Moreover, increasing the RC concrete cover is beneficial only if thermal spalling is avoided. When thermal spalling occurs, the FRC and RC-FRC solutions yielded the lowest reductions in the bearing capacity among the reinforcement solutions tested.

Fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) is increasingly used for structural purposes owing to its many benefits, especially in terms of improved overall sustainability of FRC structures relative to traditional reinforced concrete (RC). Such increased structural use of FRC requires safe and reliable models for its design in ultimate limit states (ULS). Particularly important are models for shear strength of FRC members without shear resistance due to the potential of brittle failure. The fib Model Code 2010 contains a model for the shear strength of FRC members without shear reinforcement and the same partial factor accepted for RC structures is accepted for FRC elements. This approach, however, is potentially on the unsafe side since the uncertainties of some design-determining mechanical properties of FRC (i.e., residual flexural strength) are larger than those for RC. Therefore, in this study, a comprehensive reliability-based calibration of the partial factor γc for the shear design of FRC members without shear reinforcement according to the fib Model Code 2010 model is performed. As a first step, the model error δ is assessed on 332 experimental results. Then, a parametric analysis of 700 cases is performed and a relationship between the target failure probability βR and γc is established. The results demonstrate that the current model together with the prescribed value of γc = 1.50 does not comply with the failure probabilities accepted for the different consequences of failure of FRC members over a 50-year service life. Therefore, changes to the shear resistance model are proposed in order to achieve the target failure probabilities. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This study has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 836270. This support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also wish to express their acknowledgement to the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain for the financial support received under the scope of the projects PID2019-108978RB-C32. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the individuals or organizations acknowledged.

At present, the handcrafted footwear sector is affected by the high competitiveness due to the increasing automation of companies. In this sense, in order to improve its competitiveness, a system was proposed to predict the failures of a production system and to carry out preventive maintenance actions. Samples were taken from 25 productions and 7 activities were established: cutting, stitching, pre fabrication, final preparation, gluing, assembly and finishing. The company produces batches of 90 pairs per day, with a standard time of 274.53 min and a promised productivity of 1.8. A support vector machine model was developed to predict the possible failures of the process taking as a reference the standard time of each stage. Finally, the results allow predicting the faults to optimise the production process by applying Support Vector Machine (SVM).

As the building sector is one of the leading responsible for energy consumption and CO2 emissions, criteria of sustainability, availability, and recyclability should be considered for developing materials even in the envelopes. Façade, as the first element against the undesirable external impact, may contribute to building sustainability by reducing the amount of energy consumption and providing indoor environment quality for the inhabitants. The envelope excluding its aesthetic function should fulfill certain requirements such as strength, flexibility, ductility, lightness, thermal and acoustical insulation, durability, and sustainability. Fiber/Textile cement sheets as an interesting architectural material attract great interest during the last decade, especially those reinforced with more sustainable fibers like vegetables or textile wastes. In this sense, this paper presents a novel model to evaluate the sustainability index of façade cladding panel, especially the fiber/textile cement board. To this end, a new model for assessing objectively the façade cladding sustainability was designed and developed based on MIVES according to the value function concept and seminars of experts. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the financial support in the scope of the project eFIB (reference: RTC-2016-5236-5) which was carried out along with SACYR Ingeniería e Infraestruturas. The first author also thanks the Department of Enterprise and Education of Catalan Government for providing support through the PhD Industrial Fellowship (2018 DI 77) in collaboration with Smart Engineering Ltd.

The present paper deals with an experimental study on the flexural fatigue behaviour of pre-cracked polypropylene fibre reinforced concrete with two different volume of fibre. Mechanical response was evaluated through compressive strength, elastic modulus and static bending test. Fatigue test considered an initial crack width accepted in the service limit state and the evolution of the crack opening displacement of the beams subjected to a prescribed number of cycles (1,000,000 or 2,000,000). After the cyclic load, the post-fatigue residual strength was evaluated and compared to the static response. Results suggest that the mechanism of crack development is independent of the adopted fibre content. The post-fatigue strength seems to be unaffected by accumulated damage due to cyclic load and the static load-crack opening displacement curve might be used as a criterion to predict the residual strength. Furthermore, a conceptual model is proposed to predict the crack opening as a function of number of cycles in view of accumulated fatigue damage. The equation was validated for different fibre content and polypropylene fibres. The first author thanks the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development for the scholarship granted (233980/2014-8). This research was enabled by funds provided by the SAES project (BIA2016-78742-C2-1-R) of Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad.