ECCM21 proceedings

EDITORIAL

This collection contains the proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM21), held in Nantes, France, July 2-5, 2024. ECCM21 is the 21st in a series of conferences organized every two years by the members of the European Society of Composite Materials (ESCM). As some of the papers in this collection show, this conference reaches far beyond the borders of Europe.

The ECCM21 conference was organized by the Nantes Université and the Centrale Nantes, with the support of the Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (GeM).

Nantes, the birthplace of the novelist Jules Verne, is at the heart of this edition, as are the imagination and vision that accompany the development of composite materials. They are embodied in the work of numerous participants from the academic world, but also of the many industrialists who are making a major contribution to the development of composite materials. Industry is well represented, reflecting the strong presence of composites in many application areas.

With a total of over 1200 oral and poster presentations and over 1,300 participants, the 4-day event enabled fruitful exchanges on all aspects of composites. The topics that traditionally attracted the most contributions were fracture and damage, multiscale modeling, durability, aging, process modeling and simulation and additive manufacturing.

However, the issues of energy and environmental transition, and more generally the sustainability of composite solutions, logically appear in this issue as important contextual elements guiding the work being carried out. This includes bio-sourced composites, material recycling and reuse of parts, the environmental impact of solutions, etc.

We appreciated the high level of research presented at the conference and the quality of the submissions, some of which are included in this collection. We hope that all those interested in the progress of European composites research in 2024 will find in this publication sources of inspiration and answers to their questions.

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