PSI - Issue 77

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2026) 000 – 000

www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 77 (2026) 1–2

International Conference on Structural Integrity Editorial Pedro Moreira, Paulo Tavares

INEGI – Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Porto, Portugal

During this two-year span from ICSI2023 our planet witnessed unexpected turmoil in several respects, none of which beneficial to scientific conferences. From war spreading in the EU and the Middle-East, to EU economy restart push efforts with the NextGen initiative driving essentially industrial-focused projects or even, more recently, Economies focus redirection to Defence Industry, where previously Social Welfare was a primary concern and the U.S. Administration politics change in regard to long standing EU economic partners, all forced us rethink our priorities and somehow redirect our work. During this period, we also witnessed the exponential growth of generative pre- trained transformers use, with the amazing capability to make us “talk to computers”, a sking for knowledge support, irrespective of the subject we search, albeit the known limitations of the supporting LLMs. At this day and age, our model for knowledge update and scientific networking in conferences may well be at risk, in the twilight of a golden knowledge era. Our gathering in ICSI2025 will be a clear statement that this isn’t so! These last two years also witnessed an exponential increase in research activity in Structural Integrity, spilling over to several exciting areas in materials, methods and applications. The green energy transition, in face of the pressing evidence of climate change, and the required technological developments seem to have been the main drivers for these changes. Research into metal behaviour in the presence of Hydrogen, to cite just one example, which has long been an important topic in Structural Integrity, gradually came under the focus of a growing number of scientists due to its importance in H2 storage and distribution. Novel applications for validated simulation models, which are currently driving a large amount of work into Digital Twins and sensor virtualisation, together with disruptive sensing technologies, have influenced the R&D activities in the entire world, with large implications in the Engineering fields. Current research topics in the realm of Structural Integrity targeted by this year’s ICSI include, but are not limited to Fracture and Fatigue, Stress Analysis, Damage Tolerance, Durability, Crack Closure, Joining Technologies, Nano mechanics and Nanomaterials, Ageing, Coatings Technology, Environmental Effects, Structural Health Monitoring, New materials, Surface Engineering, Integrity of biomechanics structures in and many other exciting research topics. This year, we have also received a faint expression of work directed at Defence needs, expected to grow substantially in future editions.

2452-3216 © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of ICSI organizers

2452-3216 © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of ICSI organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2026.01.085