Journal Guide

Fundada en 1951 en el Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento, Materiales de Construcción es una publicación científica bilingüe (español/inglés) de periodicidad trimestral dirigida a investigadores, técnicos de fábricas y otros profesionales del campo de la Ciencia y Tecnología de los Materiales de Construcción. Los artículos publicados en la revista se encuadran principalmente en las siguientes áreas temáticas:- Físico-química de los procesos de formación de cementos y otros conglomerantes.- Cemento y hormigón. Componentes (áridos, aditivos, adiciones, etc.). Comportamiento y propiedades.- Durabilidad y corrosión de materiales de construcción.- Restauración y conservación de los materiales de los monumentos del Patrimonio Histórico.- Incidencia del Medio Ambiente en los procesos de deterioro de los materiales de construcción.- Utilización de residuos y subproductos industriales en la construcción.

Materials (ISSN 1996-1944) is an open access journal of related scientific research and technology development. It publishes reviews, regular research papers (articles) and short communications. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. Therefore, there is no restriction on the length of the papers. The full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. Materials provides a forum for publishing papers which advance the in-depth understanding of the relationship between the structure, the properties or the functions of all kinds of materials. Chemical syntheses, chemical structures and mechanical, chemical, electronic, magnetic and optical properties and various applications will be considered.

Modern engineered materials play a central role in enabling technological designs that underpin, advance and revolutionise engineering practice. Materials & Design seeks to publish reports of materials research that present applicable advances in the insight into structure and function, and provide useable and reproducible recipes for the synthesis, preparation, characterisation, modelling and exploitation of new metallic alloys, ceramics, polymers, coatings, composites and bio-materials systems.

Today's products and their constituent components and structures have to meet increasingly stringent requirements during operation. The economic and human costs of failure during service impose a great deal of responsibility on organisations and individuals who select and integrate materials in a final engineering design. A critical feature of successful product development is the judicious selection of the best materials based on informed awareness of the capabilities and opportunities afforded by all candidates, coupled with a design that takes full advantage of their properties. A further aim of Materials & Design is to promote a greater knowledge and understanding of the attributes and capabilities of all types of modern engineering materials in the context of engineering design.

Materials & Design publishes a range of high quality peer reviewed research articles including full papers, short communications and technical reports, and occasional special issues, that investigate the properties of materials that influence or control any practical design. All types of engineering materials are considered, and all scales of processing, analysis and design from nano- and micro-scale devices and systems to large structural components. The content is broad and widely relevant to materials researchers, engineers and designers in academia and in industry.

The emphasis is placed on developing both practice and theory relevant to the field of materials engineering and science, with appropriate links established to processing, characterisation and simulation. To reflect the multidisciplinary nature of design, submissions to Materials & Design should offer information useful to professionals working in fields related to the immediate subject of the article.

Materials & Design brings together the overriding interest in the inherent architecture of solid matter with the practical need to know and use its properties to perform certain roles in service, either structural or functional. In reflection of this title, the journal is focused on the studies of natural and engineered materials, with particular emphasis on the elucidation of their structure and properties at all scales, from nuclear and electronic to amorphous and crystalline levels of organisation, to nano-scale and micro-structuring aspects, and ultimately to the manner in which this manifests itself in the suitability and performance of materials in various natural and man-made systems and applications.

In order to help the authors, reviewers and editors identified those directions of research that match the existing and future thematic threads in Materials & Design, to compile a list of priority areas that are of particular interest to the readers of the journal. These are:

• Micro- and nano-scale multi-physics phenomena, and the analysis structure, morphology, and the role of interfaces in relation to design at all scales, e.g. electrochemical energy storage, phase transformation and associated processes
• In operando and in situ studies of processes and structural evolution
• Processing of alloys and compounds for microstructure and property control, e.g. friction stir and severe plastic deformation
• Lightweight materials, e.g. alloys containing magnesium and lithium, as well as composites of all types of matrix (polymer, metal and ceramic) and reinforcement, including continuous and discontinuous fibres, low aspect ratio inclusions and nano-structured reinforcements
• Multifunctional materials, e.g. alloys, polymers and ceramics displaying shape memory effects, as well as bio-composites, composites of green or sustainable origin, and biomimetic materials
• Intelligent materials design to optimise performance, including hierarchical microstructural optimisation, self-healing, energy absorption, for durability, against damage and environmental extremes

Authors submitting their work to the journal are encouraged to identify how their studies correspond to the priority areas above, by indicating this match in the Cover Letter and the text of their manuscript, referring to the Editorial Note on the aims and scope of the journal: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2015.09.004

Assessment Criteria

In assessing the submissions to Materials & Design, the editors are guided by a few key principles. These are:

• The editors of Materials & Design favour submissions that bring together experimental observations with modelling in a logically connected way that reflects the journal title. The combination of modelling with experiment helps elucidate the ways in which theoretical (analytical or numerical) descriptions of material behaviour can be turned into predictive tools to help design and applications.
• This does not mean that submissions to Materials & Design that contain reports of purely theoretical or experimental nature will be automatically rejected: editors reserve the right to accept submissions of either kind that report particularly novel and original approaches and results likely to make outstanding contributions to the field.
• For reasons outlined above, submissions split into multiple parts, e.g. Part I and Part II, are unlikely to be successful. Editors believe that a well-connected coherent piece of research should in fact incorporate multiple approaches and findings, and can and should be reported as one compact piece, in the form of an article. Ample provision is made by the publisher to attach supplementary material that accompanies the main text of the paper.
• To have a good chance of success, submissions to Materials & Design must identify and display clearly and prominently the aspects of novelty of findings, originality of approach, unusual treatment or experimental setup, unexpected discovery, etc. This means that the application of methods and techniques previously reported in this journal or in other published periodical(s) to similar or somewhat different materials systems or situations does not qualify for consideration. The authors should note that in this sense the frequently advanced argument of the sort "we recently published a similar paper in your journal" is distinctly counter-productive in terms of improving the likelihood of seeing their work in print.

Papers must be written in clear scientific English that is well-structured and understandable to reviewers and editors without additional copy-editing. The presence of grammatical errors in the text may lead to submission being rejected at any stage in the consideration process, on the grounds of poor language impeding the understanding by the readers.

Materials Advances is an international, gold open access journal, publishing high-quality research across the breadth of materials science. The journal accepts experimental or theoretical studies that report new understanding, applications, properties and synthesis of materials, building on and complementing the materials content already published across the Royal Society of Chemistry journal portfolio. Submissions are handled by our high profile associate editors, all of whom also look after submissions to Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B & C. The Materials Advances publishing experience comes with the reputation, standards, commitment and expertise you would expect from an RSC journal, plus the visibility boost that comes from being open access and part of the Journal of Materials Chemistry family.

Materials Characterization features original articles and state-of-the-art reviews on theoretical and practical aspects of the structure and behaviour of materials.The Journal focuses on all characterization techniques, including all forms of microscopy (light, electron, acoustic, etc.,) and analysis (especially microanalysis and surface analytical techniques). Developments in both this wide range of techniques and their application to the quantification of the microstructure of materials are essential facets of the Journal.The Journal provides the Materials Scientist/Engineer with up-to-date information on many types of materials with an underlying theme of explaining the behavior of materials using novel approaches. Materials covered by the journal include:Metals & alloysCeramicsNanomaterialsBiomedical materialsOptical materialsCompositesNatural MaterialsPlease note that not all topics fall within the scope of Materials Characterization. Submissions focused on the topics listed below will not be considered for publication, potential alternative journals are indicated in brackets:thin film semiconductors (Thin Solid Films; Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing)polymers or polymer composites (Elsevier polymer titles; Composites structures)mechanical, electrical or other property measurements without any accompanying microstructural characterization (depending on the focus, please consider submitting to Corrosion Science; Wear; Materials Science & Engineering B; Materials & Design)computation, theory or analysis papers without an accompanying microstructural characterization component (Computational Materials Science; Materials Science & Engineering A; Materials Science & Engineering B; Materials Science & Engineering C)

Materials Chemistry Frontiers is devoted to the publication of original contributions at the interface of chemistry and materials science, with topics spanning but not limited to energy materials, catalysis, biomaterials, nanoscience, polymers, luminescent materials, and sensors. The journal places an emphasis on original research that demonstrates conceptual advancements with emerging applications, rather than primarily reporting technological improvements. Together with Organic Chemistry Frontiers and Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers, this suite of journals offers an authoritative portfolio that is jointly owned by the Chinese Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and partner institutions.

Materials Chemistry and Physics is devoted to short communications, full-length research papers and feature articles on interrelationships among structure, properties, processing and performance of materials. The Editors welcome manuscripts on thin films, surface and interface science, materials degradation and reliability, metallurgy, semiconductors and optoelectronic materials, fine ceramics, magnetics, superconductors, specialty polymers, nano-materials and composite materials.Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

Materials Discovery aims to promote all aspects of the emerging field of Materials Informatics and the scope includes, but is not limited to, the use of informatics or data intensive experiments and computations as applied to:

• the discovery and design of new materials and/or microstructures;
• advancing knowledge and theoretical understanding of materials processes and /or mechanisms governing materials behavior;
• understanding the nature of data collection and generation in both experimental and computational studies; and
• methods to aid the analysis and interpretation of data and databases.

We encourage submission of articles where the fundamental issues underlying topics of data measurement, quantification and uncertainty are linked to the interpretation of materials science phenomena and characterization.

Materials Discovery publishes full-length articles, perspective and review articles. The journal supports the open data movement, and is part of the Open Data Pilot (http://www.elsevier.com/about/research-data/open-data) and encourages authors to make their data available through a repository, and facilitate re-use by making use of the open access journal Data-in-Brief (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/data-in-brief/), for a reduced fee if submitted directly through Materials Discovery.

Materials Horizons is a leading journal for the publication of exceptionally high quality, innovative materials science. The journal places an emphasis on original research that demonstrates a new concept or a new way of thinking (a conceptual advance), in addition to outstanding articles featuring truly breakthrough developments. Materials Horizons spans the entire breadth of materials science, including theoretical or experimental studies that report new understanding, applications, properties and synthesis of materials.

Materials Letters is dedicated to publishing novel, cutting edge reports of broad interest to the materials community. The journal provides a forum for materials scientists and engineers, physicists, and chemists to rapidly communicate on the most important topics in the field of materials.Contributions include, but are not limited to, a variety of topics such as:• Materials - Metals and alloys, amorphous solids, ceramics, composites, polymers, semiconductors• Applications - Structural, opto-electronic, magnetic, medical, MEMS, sensors, smart• Characterization - Analytical, microscopy, scanning probes, nanoscopic, optical, electrical, magnetic, acoustic, spectroscopic, diffraction• Novel Materials - Micro and nanostructures (nanowires, nanotubes, nanoparticles), nanocomposites, thin films, superlattices, quantum dots.• Processing - Crystal growth, thin film processing, sol-gel processing, mechanical processing, assembly, nanocrystalline processing.• Properties - Mechanical, magnetic, optical, electrical, ferroelectric, thermal, interfacial, transport, thermodynamic• Synthesis - Quenching, solid state, solidification, solution synthesis, vapor deposition, high pressure, explosiveBenefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com

To publish original contributions on experimental, theoretical and simulation research on the processing, structure and properties of materials.

Materials Research Bulletin is an international journal reporting high - impact research on processing-structure-property relationships in functional inorganic materials and nanomaterials with interesting electronic, magnetic, optical, mechanical or catalytic properties. Papers purely on thermodynamics or theoretical calculations (e.g., density functional theory) do not fall within the scope of the journal unless they also demonstrate a clear link to physical properties. Topics covered include functional materials (e.g., dielectrics, pyroelectrics, piezoelectrics, ferroelectrics, and relaxors); electrochemistry and solid-state ionics (photovoltaics, batteries, sensors, and fuel cells); nanomaterials, graphene, and nanocomposites; novel electronics, luminescence, and photocatalysis; crystal-structure and defect-structure analysis; and non-crystalline solids.Benefits to authorsWe also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com