This issue contains 25 papers selected from contributions presented at the 5th Global Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE 2016), which is an annual event started from 2012.

CMSE 2016, organized by Wuhan Advance Materials Society and Taiwan Tunghai University, technically supported by Hubei University and Taiwan National Central University, was successfully held at Tunghai University in Taichung City, Taiwan during November 8th–11th, 2016. It aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars from interdisciplinary fields to exchange and share their experience and research results on all aspects of Materials Science and Engineering, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted.

Located in the subtropical ocean, Taiwan offers comfortable weather, fluctuates during spring and winter, while in summer and autumn the weather is relatively stable, turns out to be an ideal meeting place for domestic and overseas participants of this annual international conference.

The conference program included keynote presentations, special sessions, oral and poster contributions. From several hundred submissions, 25 most promising and strength-relevant contributions were included in this journal issue, which present original ideas or results of general significance supported by clear reasoning and compelling evidence, and methods, theories and practices relevant to the research. The authors state clearly the problems and the significance of their research to theory and practice.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, we would like to thank all participants of this conference, and particularly the authors of all accepted papers for their high quality and fruitful contributions. Special thanks are due to all reviewers for their carefully critical reading of the manuscripts, timely submission of quality reports and useful comments. We also acknowledge the efforts and dedication of many individuals, especially of the CMSE Conference Secretary Ms. Liu Qin, who oversaw the organization of the conference and the program,We do hope that this issue will be beneficial for readers to their future research endeavors and careers.

Prof. Arnold Ya. Krasovskii,

Guest editor, Pisarenko Institute of Problems of Strength

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine

Prof. Valery V. Kharchenko,

Editor-in-Chief, Pisarenko Institute of Problems of Strength,

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine

Dr. Alexander O. Khotsyanovskii,

Managing editor, Pisarenko Institute of Problems of Strength,

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine

Mr. Senlin Yan,

Secretary of Wuhan Advance Materials Society, Wuhan, China