To celebrate and witness the 2017 Chinese Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CCTAM2017) and the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CSTAM), which is a large professional body consisting of more than 20,000 members from around the globe and also the sponsor of Acta Mechanica Sinica (AMS), we here publish a special collection including twenty-one invited papers in this and the following issues. In this special collection, we present a wide range of papers to the research community, aiming to report the most recent development in the field. Together, they address a number of well-established and emerging topical areas, advance the state-of-the-art, and offer directions for future research.

Over the last three decades, AMS has evolved and grown to become a leading journal featuring high quality and original papers in all aspects of mechanics and related engineering sciences. Buttressed in its longstanding tradition of garnering the expertise of a team of leading scholars to serve on its editorial board, the journal has broadened its authorship and readership base, leveraged on the networks across different countries, and widened its scope beyond mainland China to become an internationally visible outlet. It has emerged as a journal which is modern and frontier-oriented, addressing cutting edge issues with global relevance.

Committing to publish papers with new insight and of potentially significant impact, AMS explores the frontiers of mechanics using analytical, computational, and experimental tools. AMS also encourages research in interdisciplinary subjects, and serves as a bridge between mechanics and other branches of engineering and sciences. We extend a warm welcome to you all for attending the CCTAM2017 in Beijing, and encourage you to submit your future work to AMS.

Tian Jian Lu, Wei Shyy, Zhigang Suo

Editors-in-Chief, Acta Mechanica Sinica