Advanced Forming and Joining Technology of Lightweight Alloys

Dear Colleagues,

Lightweight aluminium and magnesium alloys are used extensively in the construction of vehicles within the air, sea and land transport sectors. The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together the latest knowledge and ideas that enhance our understanding of material behaviour in vehicle applications to achieve increased structural integrity and product service life; reduced product weight and resource usage; and increased energy and resource efficiency in the forming and joining processes of manufacturing.

This Special Issue invites articles on the advanced forming and joining of lightweight alloys with an emphasis on models that can quantitatively explain how processing affects the eventual mechanical behaviour. Tool materials used in the processing of lightweight alloys to achieve near or net shape manufacturing are within scope. This Special Issue encourages articles that study novel processing systems, although the augmentation and refinement of traditional forming processes are also within scope. Topics may cover either analytical or numerical modeling, or experimental methods, or ideally a combination of both.

Articles on the following topics are also welcome:

• Considerations of environmental and operating conditions, such as temperature, on strain rate; fatigue and fretting fatigue on the formed and joined products; or the tool materials used to form or join them.
• Studies of processing effects on the net shape manufacturing of lightweight fibre-reinforced metal-matrix composites.
• Investigations of joining lightweight alloys using either mechanical fastening, friction-stir, solid-state or liquid-phase melting or adhesive bonding.
• Discussions of the microstructure mechanisms that cause crystallographic texture and residual stress in the lightweight alloy system to explain the relationship between process, microstructure and the resulting properties.
• Investigations of friction in forming processes, and explanations of the effects of tool material and surface microtopology on friction, tribology and wear.

Prof. Dr. Paul Wood
Dr. Jose Díaz-Álvarez
Dr. Pawel Platek
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 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.

• lighweight alloys
• advanced forming and joining
• aluminium and magnesium
• temperature and strain rate
• low and high cycle fatigue
• modeling and experiments
• microstructures and properties
• friction, tribology and wear
• tool materials