Environmental and energy saving considerations are increasingly important for contributing to SDGs. Light metals, recyclable materials, high temperature materials, corrosion-resistant materials, etc. are useful for these purposes. Biomaterials are also increasingly applied in medical operations for curing a disease and saving a life. However, it is not realistic to design and compose the structural part by using only one high-performance material. Suitable combination of materials and control of surface characteristics will be the sophisticate way to incorporate such high-performance characteristics into the structural part. New technologies for joining of dissimilar materials and surface modification are developing day by day. In practical application of these technologies, mechanical characteristics of the materials produced by these technologies, such as strength, fracture, fatigue, wear, corrosion and so on, should be clarified for reliability and safety design. It is also of importance that deformation and fracture mechanisms of the surface modified and joined materials are clarified. In this special issue, overview and recent advances of the investigations on various characteristics of surface-modified and joined materials will be published.

Aims and Scope: