Advancements in multifunctional sustainable and smart concrete 2026 Next Ma

With over 50% of the urban land projected to exist by 2030 yet to be developed, there is an urgent mandate for infrastructure that integrates rapid scalability with climate-adaptive resilience. This study presents a systematic literature synthesis of 208 peer-reviewed sources retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, evaluating the transition from traditional concrete to sustainable, multifunctional smart cementitious composites across three critical domains: synergistic binary, ternary, and quaternary SCM blends incorporating fly ash, slag, metakaolin, and silica fume; circular economy integration of waste-derived aggregates including crumb rubber and expanded glass; and the evolution of Structural Health Monitoring from extrinsic hardware to intrinsic self-sensing systems capable of real-time diagnostics. Synthesis of landmark global case studies indicates that integrating structural intelligence with high-performance binders can enhance infrastructure durability by up to 25% and reduce lifecycle maintenance costs by approximately 32%; however, these figures are mix- and context-dependent and not uniformly reproducible. Critical contradictions emerge across the literature: quaternary blends achieve superior microstructural refinement but exhibit rheological complexity and elevated superplasticizer demand; waste-derived aggregates facilitate carbon reduction but introduce a material-energy nexus trade-off wherein sustainability gains are offset by reduced compressive strength and increased porosity; and carbon-based self-sensing systems demonstrate strong piezoresistive performance yet face unresolved challenges in long-term signal stability and percolation threshold consistency. Four critical research bottlenecks are identified.