The engineering aspects of larger turbine development tend to focus on design and materials for blades and towers. However, foundations are also a critical component of large wind turbines and represent a significant cost of wind energy projects. Ongoing wind research at BNL is examining two areas: (a) structural response analysis of wind turbine-tower-foundation systems and (b) materials engineering of foundations. This work is investigating the dynamic interactions in wind turbine systems, which in turn assists the wind industry in achieving improved reliability and more cost efficient foundation designs. The results reported herein cover initial studies of concrete mix designs for large wind turbine foundations and how these may be tailored to reduce cost and incorporate sustainability and life cycle concepts. The approach taken was to investigate material substitutions so that the environmental, energy and CO(sub 2)-impact of concrete could be reduced. The use of high volumes of 'waste' materials in concrete was examined. These materials included fly ash, blast furnace slag and recycled concrete aggregate. In addition, the use of steel fiber reinforcement as a means to improve mechanical properties and potentially reduce the amount of bar reinforcement in concrete foundations was studied. Four basic mixes were considered. These were: (1) conventional mix with no material substitutions, (2) 50% replacement of cement with fly ash, (3) 50% replacement of cement with blast furnace slag and (4) 25% replacement of cement with fly ash and 25% replacement with blast furnace slag. Variations on these mixes included the addition of 1% by volume steel fibers. The use of recycled concrete aggregate in the conventional and 50% slag mixes was also studied. Properties investigated included compressive and tensile strengths, elastic modulus, coefficient of permeability, thermal conductivity and durability in seawater and sulfate solutions. It was determined that the mixes containing 50% slag gave the best overall performance.