Advanced Materials and Performance Characterization in Additive Manufacturing

Dear Colleagues,

Additive manufacturing (AM) is reshaping how we design, build, and deploy materials and components. With unmatched design freedom, reduced material waste, and faster development cycles, both fusion-based and solid-state AM technologies are opening new opportunities across aerospace, automotive, biomedical, energy, and defense applications. Yet, for AM to move from promise to widespread deployment in critical applications, advances in processing must be matched by innovations in materials and a deeper understanding of performance under real service conditions.

Recent advances in metallic, ceramic, and composite feedstocks have accelerated the development of materials tailored for AM. At the same time, the complex thermal cycles and layer-wise nature of AM generate unique microstructures, anisotropies, residual stresses, and defects that strongly govern mechanical, thermal, tribological, electrical, and corrosion performance. As a result, advanced characterization is essential for revealing process–structure–property relationships and enabling faster qualification and certification of AM materials and components.

This Special Issue, “Advanced Materials and Performance Characterization in Additive Manufacturing,” invites high-quality original research and review articles that capture the latest advances in AM materials, characterization methods, and performance evaluation. We welcome contributions on material and process development, testing, qualification, and microstructure–property relationships, as well as studies linking defects and heterogeneities to in-service behavior. Experimental, computational, and data-driven studies are all encouraged.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Advanced materials development for additive manufacturing;
• Novel metallic, ceramic, and composite feedstocks;
• Process–structure–property relationships in AM materials;
• Microstructural evolution and phase characterization in AM builds;
• Mechanical performance, including tensile, fatigue, creep, and fracture behavior;
• Residual stress, distortion, and defect characterization;
• Corrosion, wear, oxidation, and environmental durability of AM materials;
• In situ monitoring and advanced characterization techniques;
• Post-processing and its effect on material performance;
• Qualification, certification, and reliability of AM components;
• Modeling, simulation, and data-driven approaches for AM materials;
• Multi-scale characterization and performance prediction of additively manufactured materials.

Dr. Supreeth Gaddam
Dr. Anurag Gumaste
Dr. Wei Cai
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 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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes 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.

• additive manufacturing
• advanced materials
• performance characterization
• process–structure–property relationships
• microstructural evolution
• residual stress
• defect characterization
• in situ monitoring
• post-processing
• material qualification