This book collects the selected and peer-reviewed papers from the 7th International Conference on Innovative and Smart Materials (ICISM 2025), which was hosted by University of Cape Town during May 16–18, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference aims to serve as a unique gathering for distinguished scholars worldwide in the field of smart materials. Esteemed directors, scientists, professors, research scholars, postdocs, and academic staff were poised to present their research findings, while also embracing emerging technological trends in the expansive realm of smart materials. The contributions of ICISM 2025 focus on the latest advances, trends, and future challenges in Application of smart materials, structures and related technology, fundamentals of smart materials, shape memory alloys and polymers, electro and magnetorheological materials, electroactive polymers, energy storage materials, composite materials, etc. This book further highlights numerous exciting ideas generated from the ICISM 2025 Conference, which spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations among the experts working in these related fields.

Prof. Richard (Chunhui) Yang is Founding Director, Centre for Advanced Manufacturing Technology and a Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Smart Structures, School of Engineering, Western Sydney University, Australia. He is an internationally recognised research leader on fields of research, including Advanced Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing/3D printing of metals, polymers and composites, Advanced Engineering Materials & Smart Structures, Circular Manufacturing & Circular Economy, Defence Technology, Industry 4.0, Machine Condition Monitoring (MCM) & Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), Metal Forming, Metal Surface Treatment, etc. He has been awarded over AUD$20m in competitive research grants, including 13 ARC grants (1 ARC Training Centre, 3 DPs, 3 LPs, and 6 LIEFs), 1 Additive Manufacturing CRC (AMCRC), 2 CSIRO/NSF Convergence Accelerator Projects as well as 20+ from government and/or industry. As for scientific publication, he has published more than 300 high-quality technical publications in top scientific journals, books, and conferences as a major contributor in his relevant fields of research. As for external service, he is serving as assessor for Australian Research Council (ARC), editor board member, conference committee member, reviewer of international journals and conferences, examiner for Master and PhD thesis, etc. He is the Editor-in-Chief of 2 scientific journals, the Associate Editor of 2, and on the Editorial Board of 5.