Wireless sensor networks consist of different sensor nodes, able to monitor inaccessible environments. Our objective is to improve the lifetime of specific WSNs in the context of communicating material. And we apply it to smart concrete design. The McBIM project, its objectives and constraints are introduced with some existing solutions for data collection. Protocols including aggregation features have been preferred, in order to reduce the number of messages and optimize network lifetime. Three main methods in data aggregation are presented with their main advantages and drawbacks: chain-based, cluster-based and tree-based methods. Furthermore, a comparison of the different associated algorithms is proposed based on required performance metrics, related to our context of application. Finally, some perspectives for the future work are presented.