The civil engineering industry mainly depends on the development of modern construction materials to suit the rising need and demand for high strength materials. Bountiful research works have been undertaken across the globe to develop innovative materials, but there is still scope for further development. Additionally, the advancement in computing technology has helped many researchers move towards the utilisation of computer-based techniques including soft computing applications to develop modern materials.

Many materials that have been used for centuries have undergone drastic changes in their composition, structure, and use, including concrete. Today, it is becoming difficult to find natural resources for concrete production. Utilization of waste materials not only helps in producing concrete, cement, and other construction materials, but also has various secondary advantages, for example, saving energy, the decrease in landfill costs, and protecting the climate from pollution. This requires modern tools and techniques as using conventional methods isn’t sustainable. Numerous methods have been trialled by researchers to innovate materials from micro-level and computing techniques such as deep learning. Machine learning helps in evaluating, understanding, and predicting several attributes that dictate the material strength. Consequentially, this work is becoming interdisciplinary, involving machine learning experts to sustainable material development researchers.

Considering the development occurring in this domain, there is a need to compile the efforts of multiple researchers working towards achieving this goal. This Special Issue will serve as a platform of dissemination research including original research and review articles related to AI applications in sustainable material development and testing.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Artificial intelligence applications in civil engineering
• ANN applications in concrete evaluation and design
• Mathematical modelling of sustainable construction materials
• Recent trends in Sustainable construction material design and development
• Deep learning-based models for materials development
• Sustainable materials for smart cities
• Modern algorithms for sustainable material development
• Meta heuristic-based techniques for construction material innovation
• Soft computing applications in civil engineering material development
• Soft computing-based techniques for the testing of engineering materials
• Mathematical modelling applications in material characterisation
• AI based applications in waste material utilisation for construction material development
• Scientometric applications in sustainable material development