Innovative Nanomaterials for Enhanced Steel and Alloy Performance
A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanofabrication and Nanomanufacturing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 September 2026 | Viewed by 4275
Special Issue Editor
Interests: ultrahigh strength steel; HEA; superalloy; nanostructure; phase transformation; twinning; strengthening; strength; ductility; deformation mechanism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Higher strength and good ductility are desirable qualities for structural materials. However, ultra-strong alloys inevitably show strength–ductility trade-off, thereby limiting their potential applications. Over the past few years, extensive novel approaches have been applied to enhance the mechanical properties of metallic materials via the creation of nanoscale substructures, such as chemical short-range order (CSRO), chemical short-range disorder (CSRO), nanoscale co-precipitation, nanotwins, nanoscale stacking faults, a nano-metal-stable phase, and heterostructure engineering-induced nanostructures. Such innovative alloy design concepts have opened up new avenues for material exploration and property optimization. For example, in lightweight compositionally complex steel undergoing cryogenic tensile loading, the dislocation cutting of B2 nanoprecipitates enhances the steel with up to two gigapascals of ultra-high cryogenic tensile strength at a tensile elongation of 34%. Meanwhile, by successively designing a supranano (<10 nm) and short-range ordering design in fine-grained alloys, the grain boundary–related strengthening and ductilization mechanism is effectively realized through a supranano-ordering-enhanced pinning effect for dislocations and stacking faults, leading to an ultra-high tensile stress of 2600 MPa at 10% strain.
This Special Issue focuses on new findings in the field of metallic materials, which are closely related to improved performance when nanostructures are used.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to the following:
- Metallic materials with heterogeneous structures, including nanostructures;
- Metallic materials with gradient structures, including nanostructures;
- Metallic materials with nanoscale dual/multiple-phase structures;
- Bi-modal structures including nanostructures;
- Metal matrix composites with nanostructures;
- Any metallic materials strengthened via nanostructures, etc.
Prof. Dr. Yongfeng Shen
Guest Editor
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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
- nanoscale precipitation
- nanotwin
- high-entropy alloy
- titanium alloy
- high-strength steel
- strength
- ductility
- strain hardening
- atomic-scale characterization
- molecular dynamics simulation
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
