Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) represent a critical material class at the frontier of structural performance and lightweighting strategies across automotive, aerospace, and civil infrastructure sectors. This session brings together leading researchers and engineers to address the latest advances in AHSS alloy design, processing, mechanical characterisation, forming, joining, and in-service failure behaviour, with a strong emphasis on bridging microstructural understanding with industrial application. Contributions providing new understanding, advanced characterisation techniques, and modelling approaches related to the proposed topics are particularly welcome.

Scope & Topics of Interest:

• Alloy-Process-Microstructure–Property relationships in AHSS
• Forming, stamping and roll forming of AHSS: springback, edge cracking and FLD
• Non-conventional technological approaches for heat treatment of AHSS-thermal cycling, ultrafast heating and other )
• Microstructure evolution during manufacturing processes (phase transformations, recrystallization, recovery, etc.)
• Severe plastic deformation and ultra-fine grained steels
• Hydrogen embrittlement and delayed fracture susceptibility
• Fatigue performance and damage mechanisms under variable amplitude loading
• Joining technologies: resistance spot welding, laser welding, adhesive bonding and mechanical fastening
• Crashworthiness, energy absorption and impact response
• Corrosion behaviour and protective coatings (galvanised, hot-dip, PVD)
• Residual stress, work hardening and press hardening (hot stamping / PHS)
• Computational modelling, FEM, and data-driven approaches for AHSS
• Sustainability, recyclability and lifecycle considerations

This session presents recent developments in the application of digital twin technologies for the assessment, monitoring, and prediction of structural integrity, materials performance, and engineering processes. Digital twins enable the creation of dynamic virtual representations of physical components and structures that are continuously informed by experimental measurements, monitoring data, and computational models. By integrating sensing technologies, structural health monitoring systems, and data-driven modelling approaches, digital twins provide a powerful framework for understanding complex material behaviour and structural response under real operating conditions.  Contributions will address how integrated digital representations of physical assets can be used to capture the evolving condition of structures and materials throughout their operational life.

The session will highlight interdisciplinary research and applications will span a wide range of engineering domains, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, and materials engineering, demonstrating how digital twin frameworks can support improved design strategies, optimized maintenance planning, and enhanced lifecycle management of engineering systems. Case studies from different engineering sectors will illustrate how such frameworks can support improved reliability assessment, risk mitigation strategies, and long-term asset management.

Indicative subtopics (non-exclusive):

• Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and intelligent diagnostics
• Digital image correlation (DIC)
• Non-destructive testing (NDT) and evaluation methods
• Data-driven modelling and machine learning in engineering, durability and reliability of mechanical systems
• Uncertainty quantification and reliability analysis
• Fatigue and fracture under cyclic and dynamic loading
• Failure of metals, composites, and geomaterials
• Dynamic behaviour of mechanical and energy systems
• Experimental and numerical characterization of heritage materials
• Sensor fusion and real-time monitoring systems
• Multi-scale modelling of material degradation, damage evolution and performance assessment of advanced and smart materials
• Decision-support tools for engineering system management
• Applications in mechanical, aerospace, civil, and geotechnical structures
   

Defects such as shrinkage and gas porosity, oxide inclusions or the notorious oxide bifilms observed in High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC) are a major cause of rejection of cast components. Occurrence and characteristics of such defects naturally differ depending on casting process, cast alloy and processing as well as other boundary conditions, as does their impact on part properties. Producing parts without any defect is basically impossible. However, rejection of parts is costly specifically if defects are detected only late in the manufacturing chain, and it adds to the environmental footprint of casting processes. Reducing defect related process scrap and improving defect tolerance are key challenges for increased process efficiency, improved structural reliability, and making metal casting process more sustainable.

Thus the main questions to be answered to increase yield, and the focal points of the present session, are the following:

• How and for what reason do casting defects form?
• How can they be detected using non-destructive methods?
• What are their effects on the performance of the cast part?

Understanding why and how defects form is a prerequisite for eliminating them - or at least limiting their amount.

Detection of defects goes beyond locating and identifying them. Finding the defects and pinpointing both their coordinates as well as their geometry can give access to new ways of describing defect populations, e.g. in terms of spatial arrangement and linking them to processing conditions and behavior of the final part under operating conditions.

Understanding the effects of defects in detail allows to define criteria that better distinguish between good parts and rejects than common approaches like maximum pore size or porosity level in critical areas.

The interplay of these three main aspects can pave the way towards new levels of quality and performance in cast parts. It may also facilitate a change in perspective from avoiding defects at ever higher cost to accepting their presence based on a deeper understanding of how they affect the relevant characteristics of the component in question.

The session encourages contributions that establish quantitative links between process parameters, defect population characteristics, and component performance under quasistatic, dynamic and cyclic load. Integrated approaches combining experiments, advanced characterization techniques (X-ray CT etc.), process simulation, and data-driven or machine learning methods for defect prediction and quality control are especially welcome. All casting processes and materials are addressed, however, a certain focus is placed on High and Low Pressure Die Casting (HPDC, LPDC) of light alloys (aluminium, magnesium). Similarly, effects of defects predominantly relates to structural performance, but may also include relevant functional properties such as electrical or thermal conductivity. 

The unique thermal history and layer-based fabrication inherent to Additive Manufacturing (AM) bring new aspects to the traditional understanding of material failure. This mini symposium focuses on the root causes of failure in additively manufactured components, as the related techniques rapidly gain ground in high-performance applications such as the aerospace, biomedical, and aviation sectors.

In this way, we aim to bring together academic researchers and industrial partners interested in the exploration of how AM-induced characteristics and defects affect the degradation of mechanical components in their working environment against different forms of loading (e.g., tensile, fatigue, creep, impact) or wear (erosion, corrosion, sliding wear), as well as the resulting fractographic characteristics.

The topics of the session will deal with metal, polymer, and ceramic AM techniques, with primary interest in (not limited) to:

• Inherent defects and microstructural characteristics in Additive manufacturing
• Mechanical loading of AM components
• Surface degradation and engineering of AM parts and coating
• Fractography of AM parts
• Simulation of failure modes
• The effect of design and topology on the failure of AM components

Residual stresses in engineering structures are caused by a variety of different mechanisms including manufacturing and joining methods and can dramatically influence the failure behaviour of materials. They can change the crack initiation, crack growth and fracture as well as affecting the wear, corrosion etc. It is known that, in general, tensile residual stresses have detrimental effects and compressive residual stresses are beneficial. Therefore, for integrity assessments of engineering components, it is important to obtain a detailed knowledge of residual stresses.
This session aims to gather research outcomes on failure when combined with residual stresses and offers an engaging exploration of current insights on qualifying / quantifying the effects of residual stresses on failure. It provides a platform for sharing expertise at macro or micro levels of any failure mechanism when residual stresses are contributing. It also aims to gather research papers on the life predictions models and life extension methods where residual stresses are considered. Papers on the measurement of residual stresses are also considered.

Failures in tailing dams, underground works, and water reservoirs represent some of the most critical risks in mining and large infrastructure projects. These failures may arise from flooding events, but also from geotechnical, structural, operational, and monitoring deficiencies, as well as from uncertainty in material properties and design assumptions.
This session focuses on failure mechanisms, engineering analysis of real case failures, and prevention and mitigation strategies, emphasizing risk informed design, monitoring, and decision-making.

Indicative (Non-Exhaustive) Topics

• Failure mechanisms in tailing dams (stability, seepage, liquefaction, operational failures)
• Failures in underground works (mines, tunnels, caverns): collapses, groundwater inflow, rock mass degradation
• Water reservoirs, dams and pit lakes: structural and geotechnical failures, operational mismanagement
• Coupled geotechnical, hydrogeological, structural failure processes
• Uncertainty, variability, and risk assessment in infrastructure safety
• Monitoring, instrumentation, and early-warning systems
• Design, retrofitting, and prevention measures
• Geostatistics & uncertainty quantification in risk assessment
• Lessons learned from historical failures and near-miss events
• Standards, guidelines, and best practices

Aluminum has been designated by the EU as a strategic and critical raw material because it sits at the core of, advanced manufacturing, defence, automotive, packaging, building, aerospace, defence, electrification and renewable energy technologies. From powering solar panels to enabling electricity grids, aluminum is indispensable to achieving the societal climate and resilience goals. Recycling aluminium uses just 5% of the energy required for primary production, effectively turning scrap into an energy “bank” and a valuable asset. There are, however, important barriers that delay complete circularity. Some of the major barriers include:

• inefficient and fragmented scrap sorting that leads to the accumulation of tramp elements (Fe, Cu, Zn, V, Ni, Pb, Na, Ca etc.) degrading material properties limiting use in high-performance, safety-critical products
• lack of impurity-tolerant alloy chemistries restricting the use of scrap-rich feedstock in high-performance products
• limited digital integration, with alloy design, process modelling, and sustainability assessments performed in isolation.

As a result, much of the recovered material is downcycled into low value cast products, constraining its potential to displace primary Al in demanding applications.

The session aims to stimulate discussion on the above issues and aims to attract high quality scientific presentations in areas such as:

• Advanced scrap characterization to improve sorting accuracy at industrial speeds.
• New and efficient sorting approaches, including robotic and AI-enabled scrap sorting
• Innovative melt refinement technologies to produce high quality secondary aluminum
• Advanced digital simulation and alloy design approaches for the development of impurity-tolerant and impurity-for-advantage alloy chemistries.
• Advanced characterization approaches to quantify the effect of impurities including chemical, microstructural and property characterization.
• 3D printing with recycled feedstock
• Building trust in recycled aluminum alloys: Digitalization for tracking CO2 and energy savings across the value chain
   

During service life composite materials may exhibit highly dynamic loading events, such as foreign object impact or crash situations. Under these conditions, damage may initiate and propagate under dynamic conditions. This session collects the latest advancements in understanding and describing dynamic fracture of composite materials. Contributions in the following domains are therefore sought:

• Experimental methods for measuring high-rate material properties of composites
• Modeling approaches for describing fracture in composites under high-rate loading conditions
• Testing and modeling of strectures under crash and impact loads (e.g. hail strike, bird strike, …)

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) has evolved from a rapid prototyping tool into a manufacturing technology capable of producing complex high-performance components for aerospace, energy, biomedical and structural applications. Despite significant progress, widespread industrial adoption remains limited by challenges related to process stability, microstructure control, defect formation, mechanical performance and qualification. At the same time, metal AM is emerging as a transformative manufacturing route, that enables unique microstructures and combinations of properties that are difficult or even impossible to achieve through conventional processing. This symposium emphasizes materials-centric research aimed at understanding and controlling microstructure, defects and mechanical performance in metal AM. It will highlight advances in process–structure–property relationships that support robust, repeatable and high-performance AM components, addressing both fundamental mechanisms and emerging processing concepts. The symposium covers, but is not limited to, contributions addressing the following topics:

•  Metal AM processes and underlying process physics including laser and electron beam powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition and hybrid manufacturing routes.
• Process–microstructure relationships governing melt pool behavior, solidification, phase transformations, beam shaping and residual stresses.
• Alloy and microstructure design strategies for AM including multimaterials and functionally graded materials.
• Defect formation and degradation mechanisms and their impact on mechanical and functional performance.
• Mechanical behavior of AM metals including fatigue, fracture and creep.
• Post-processing, in situ monitoring and data-driven approaches for process control, qualification and certification.
   

Fatigue-driven degradation remains one of the leading causes of structural failure in engineering systems, especially in polymer and composite materials used in various applications including aerospace, automotive, wind energy, and civil infrastructure. Unlike metals, polymers and fiber-reinforced composites exhibit complex time-dependent, viscoelastic, and anisotropic fatigue behaviors governed by microstructural evolution, environmental interactions, and multiscale damage mechanisms.

This special session aims to bring together researchers and industry experts to discuss recent advances in experimental characterization,  and multiscale modeling for polymers and composite materials under cyclic loading and addressing lifetime prediction, and structural health monitoring. Topics of interest include crack initiation and propagation, fatigue-environment coupling, high- and low-cycle fatigue behavior, fatigue in additive-manufactured polymers, hybrid composites, durability under thermo-mechanical loading, and innovative design strategies for enhanced fatigue resistance.