The 9th International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation (SEMC 2025) was held at the Southern Sun Cape Sun Hotel in the centre of Cape Town from 1 to 3 September 2025. The conference was attended by 300 participants from 42 countries worldwide; some 163 universities and various other organisations were represented. Excluding the host country, the top 10 countries in terms of number of participants were Germany, UK, Italy, Japan, China, Sweden, Czech Republic, Australia, USA and Poland. Keynote lectures were delivered by Prof. Sergio Pellegrino (California Institute of Technology, USA), Prof. Ahmer Wadee (Imperial College London, UK), Prof. Yan-Bo Wang (for Prof. Guo-Qiang Li, Tongji University, China), Prof. Olivia Mirza (Western Sydney University, Australia), Prof. Jörg Schröder (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) and Prof. Chul-Woo Kim (Kyoto University, Japan).
The SEMC 2025 Proceedings comprise 276 peer-reviewed papers. The range of topics reflects the wide scope of the SEMC conference, and covers developments on the mechanics of materials and structures, improvements in the modelling and simulation of structural behaviour, and advances in the analysis, design, construction, maintenance, monitoring, repair, strengthening and retrofitting of engineering structures and systems. Entitled “Engineering Materials, Structures, Systems and Methods for a More Sustainable Future”, the SEMC 2025 Proceedings have been published by CRC Press (Taylor & Francis) as an e-book of full papers (1680 pages), and a printed book of shorter versions of the papers (616 pages).
The organisers believe the aims of the conference, namely “to bring together from around the world academics, researchers and practitioners in the broad fields of structural mechanics, associated computation and structural engineering, to review recent achievements in the advancement of knowledge and understanding in these areas, share the latest developments, and address the challenges that the present and the future pose”, were fulfilled. We wish to thank all participants for their contributions, and look forward to welcoming you again for the 10th SEMC conference, which will be in September 2028 (exact dates will be announced in 2026).