The 9th International Conference Modern Trends in Structural Materials COMAT 2026 took place from 8 to 10 September 2026 at the Vienna House Easy Pilsen hotel.
This year’s event was opened by Prof. Ing. Jan Džugan, Ph.D., who welcomed 78 experts from 11 countries. A total of 25 lectures were delivered during the conference, and participants also had the opportunity to view 33 posters.
The plenary session programme was opened by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan T. Sehrt from Wohlers Associates / Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) with a lecture entitled ‘State of the Additive Manufacturing Industry’. Prof. Dr E-Wen Huang from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) also spoke at the plenary session, delivering a lecture entitled “High-throughput synchrotron X-ray-based combinatorial stoichiometry & microstructure hardness mapping via machine learning-assisted prediction & validation of advanced alloys”.
On the second day of the conference, two further plenary lectures took place: one by Dr. Brad L. Boyce from Sandia National Laboratories / Johns Hopkins University in the USA, on the topic “Mitigating Fatigue Failure at the Nanoscale”, and one by Prof. Jan Minár from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. The topic of his lecture was “Quantum Materials: Emergent Properties and Future Technologies”.
The subsequent technical programme was focused on a wide range of current topics. The main areas included the processing and characterisation of metallic materials, material models and digital twins, the use of artificial intelligence in the field of metallic materials, additive manufacturing, materials for the circular economy, bio-applications and materials for sustainable energy.
The main sponsor of the conference was MCAE Systems, s.r.o., with further sponsorship provided by Metalco Testing s.r.o., Advanced Metal Powders s.r.o., Ametek GmbH, X-Sight s.r.o., ZwickRoell s.r.o. and PROFIKA s.r.o.
The COMAT 2026 Best Poster Award was presented to Agnieszka Wojteczko, Dr. Ing., from AGH University of Krakow (Poland) for her work ‘Mechanical performance of Bioactive Ceramic Composites for Bone Regeneration’.
An excursion to the COMTES FHT a.s. research organisation in Dobřany also provided an attractive highlight of the programme. During the visit, participants toured the Science and Technology Park.
The presence of experts from both the academic and commercial sectors, together with the conference’s broad thematic scope, confirmed that research and development into new structural materials remain highly relevant fields. The results presented have the potential for practical application across a wide range of sectors, including the energy sector, the automotive industry and medicine.