Advanced Manufacturing Processing Technologies for Metals, Alloys and Steels

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid development of advanced manufacturing technologies is creating new opportunities for the design, processing, and performance optimization of metallic materials. Driven by increasing demands for lightweight structures, high-temperature capability, corrosion resistance, structural reliability, and complex component manufacturing, conventional processing routes are increasingly being integrated with emerging technologies such as additive manufacturing, advanced thermomechanical processing, intelligent process control, and data-driven materials development. Nevertheless, the processing of metals and alloys still involves complex interactions among thermal history, melt flow, solidification, phase transformation, deformation, defect formation, and microstructural evolution. A fundamental understanding of these processing–microstructure–property relationships is therefore essential for achieving precise control of material performance and accelerating the development of next-generation metallic materials and manufacturing technologies.

This Special Issue, entitled “Advanced Manufacturing Processing Technologies for Metals, Alloys and Steel”, aims to present and disseminate recent advances in the manufacturing, processing, microstructure control, and performance optimization of metals and alloys. Particular attention will be paid to the fundamental mechanisms governing microstructural evolution during additive manufacturing, thermomechanical processing, welding and joining, heat treatment, solidification, and other advanced processing routes. Contributions addressing advanced alloy design, process parameter optimization, melt-pool and solidification behavior, phase transformation, defect and interface control, and microstructure–property relationships are particularly encouraged. Studies on high-temperature alloys, high-entropy and multi-principal-element alloys, corrosion-resistant alloys, steels, aluminum-, silicon-, titanium-, and other advanced metallic materials are also welcome. In addition, this Special Issue encourages interdisciplinary studies involving computational modeling, materials informatics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data-driven approaches for alloy and process design, with the aim of accelerating the transition from empirical processing toward predictive and intelligent manufacturing. Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Metal additive manufacturing and 3D printing.
• Electron beam and laser-based manufacturing technologies.
• Advanced alloy design and microstructure engineering.
• Thermomechanical processing and deformation behavior.
• Welding, joining, and surface engineering.
• Solidification, melt-pool dynamics, and phase transformations.
• Heat treatment and microstructural evolution.
• Defect, interface, and residual stress control.
• Microstructure–property relationships of metallic materials.
• High-temperature, high-entropy, corrosion-resistant, and lightweight alloys.
• Computational modeling and simulation of manufacturing processes.
• Materials informatics, machine learning, and AI-assisted alloy/process design. 

Dr. Huakang Bian
Dr. Min Liu
Dr. Rui Luo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.