Advanced Coating Strategies for Steel Materials
A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Corrosion, Wear and Erosion".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 July 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: materials design and alloy development; microstructural evolution mechanisms; structure–property relationships; service behavior
Interests: additive–subtractive hybrid manufacturing; grinding and precision machining; structural design; control of heterogeneous biped robots
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Steel materials are widely used in critical fields such as aerospace, energy, transportation, and marine engineering; however, their complex service environments often expose them to wear, corrosion, high-temperature oxidation, and fatigue, which significantly limit their service life and reliability. As an effective approach to enhancing the surface performance of steel materials, coating technologies have made remarkable progress in recent years. Not only have significant breakthroughs been achieved in protective coatings (e.g., corrosion-resistant, wear-resistant, and high-temperature coatings), but functional coatings (e.g., self-healing, smart-responsive, and eco-friendly coatings) have also demonstrated great potential.
This Special Issue aims to collect the latest research advances in the field of surface coatings for steel materials, with a particular focus on innovative results in advanced coating preparation methods, interfacial structure control, performance optimization mechanisms, and industrial applications. Contributions at different levels—from fundamental research to applied studies and engineering practices—are welcome, including experimental investigations, simulation studies, and interdisciplinary research.
The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- Design and fabrication of novel corrosion-resistant, wear-resistant, and high-temperature coatings for steel materials.
- Interfacial structure evolution, adhesion mechanisms, and failure mechanisms of coatings for steel materials.
- Advanced surface modification and coating deposition techniques (e.g., PVD, CVD, thermal spraying, laser cladding, electrochemical deposition, and so on) for steel materials.
- Functional coatings (self-healing, antibacterial, smart-responsive, and eco-friendly) for steel materials.
- Multi-scale characterization and simulation of coating microstructure and performance for steel materials.
- Service behavior of coatings under extreme environments (marine, atmospheric, thermal cycling, wear–corrosion coupling, etc.) for steel materials.
We hope that this Special Issue will provide an international academic platform for researchers and engineers working in the field of coatings for steel materials, thereby promoting both scientific development and industrial applications.
Dr. Depeng Shen
Dr. Yuying Yang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coatings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- steel materials
- corrosion resistance
- wear resistance
- high-temperature coatings
- functional coatings
- coating–substrate interface
- laser cladding
- thermal spraying
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