Dear Colleagues,

Steel is the workhorse of our infrastructure with widest application scope and largest consumption. Naturally, the development of steel has never ceased. Paricularly in the past hundred years, with the progress of modern physical metallurgy technology, the performances of steel have been greatly improved. Currently, for high-performance steels, not only have mechanical properties such as high strength and toughness been sought but more attention has also been focused on improving application performances, such as ensuring better weldability and formability, longer service life and higher safety. According to different engineering scenarios, more specific performance requirements are also proposed, such as crack resistance toughness of ship plate steel for super large container ships, seismic resistance and fire resistance performance of construction steel for modern buildings, impact resistance and wear resistance of tool and die steel for large stamping equipment, and corrosion and hydrogen induced cracking resistance of steel for tubular goods used in oilfields with severe corrosive environment, among others. The development of high-performance steel is inseparable from the support of physical metallurgy theory. The design of alloy elements not only considers the effect of solid solution and precipitation but also the nonequilibrium distribution and coupling effects between multi-alloying elements. The microstructure design has developed from the simple phase type to multi-phase and multi-scale regulation. The manufacture of steels has also become increasing complex, necessitating a narrow process window. It is believed that the continuous innovation of physical metallurgy theory and the continuous progress of industrial technology and equipment will undoubtedly promote the improvement of steel performances.

In this Special Issue, we welcome the articles that propose novel designs of alloying and processing to achieve high performance. Here, the term ‘high performance’ is not limited to a single outstanding property but also includes excellent comprehensive performances. Research works with bright engineering application prospects are particularly welcomed. We sincerely look forward to your contribution.

Dr. Xiucheng Li
Dr. Shilong Liu
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. Metals 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 2000 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.

• high-performance steels
• strength
• toughness
• ductility
• corrosion
• wear resistance
• microstructure
• alloying
• weldability