The joining of dissimilar materials, particularly Metal-Composite and Metal-Polymer combinations has become a central strategy for developing lightweight, high-performance hybrid structures in automotive, aerospace, and structural engineering. The long-term reliability of these hybrid assemblies is largely defined by the quality of the joint and the efficiency of interfacial adhesion, both of which are often challenged by differences in surface energy, thermal expansion behavior, and chemical compatibility between the dissimilar materials. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in surface pre-treatment methods designed to enhance bonding in metal-composite and metal-polymer joints. Mechanical techniques, laser-based surface structuring, chemical treatments, plasma activation, and hybrid approaches are systematically evaluated. Particular emphasis is placed on how these methods modify surface morphology, chemistry, and wettability to promote mechanical interlocking, chemical bonding, and better joint quality and mechanical behavior. The discussion critically assesses the advantages and drawbacks of each technique in terms of bond strength, durability, and industrial applicability, offering insights into current progress and future directions for optimizing hybrid joining technologies.
Vegetative barriers are commonly used to reduce wind velocity and mitigate dust dispersion and aeolian erosion. While their effectiveness has been widely demonstrated, the influence of plant spatial arrangement—particularly in multi-row configurations with varying heights—remains underexplored. This study presents a wind tunnel investigation of airflow modification by artificial vegetation models arranged in three configurations: a single row of trees and two multi-row layouts combining trees and shrubs (MR1: trees upstream and shrubs downstream; and MR2: shrubs upstream and trees downstream). Based on 2D laser Doppler velocimetry measurements, both streamwise (U) and vertical (V) components together with Reynolds shear stress ( u'v' ) were analyzed to study the wake dynamics. The results show that MR1 (trees upstream) induces a more intense velocity reduction near the barrier, with 28
This work presents numerical study using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, employing the commercial ANSYS Fluent software. Aiming to improve the occupants’ thermal comfort in building environment by modifying heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems terminal units. Evaluating and comparing the airflow characteristics and occupant’s thermal comfort inside an office room, occupied by multi-cone ceiling air diffuser, which will be referred to CD. Then using the same air diffuser occupied with inclined undulated fins called inserted lobes, this diffuser is referred to LD. The thermal comfort was assessed in terms of percentage of dissatisfaction (PD) and draft rate (DR) indices. The optimal mesh density was selected after testing four different mesh densities. This numerical study was validated using SST k-w turbulent model. The results showed a reduction in air velocity and noticeable improvement in thermal comfort after inserting the inserted lobes by 20% and 5% in terms of PD and DR.
This study focuses on measuring the mass concentration of soot aggregates generated with a Mini-CAST burner. The experiments were performed in a test bench able to generate soot particles with different size distributions and different organic to total carbon (OC/TC) ratios. With this soot production, we assessed the mass concentration measurements obtained with four online instruments, based on different methods: oscillating microbalance, aerosol electrical charging, filter photometry, and aerosol mobility, as well as an offline gravimetric measurement. The OC/TC ratio was determined by the thermal–optical method. The findings demonstrate that the oscillating microbalance measurements were performed within acceptable limits of 10 % in comparison to the gravimetric measurements, over a wide range of OC/TC ratio, mass concentration, and size distribution. The oscillating microbalance measurements were therefore considered to be the reference. The mass concentration measurement based on the aerosol electrical charging is calibrated for a reference size distribution, and we suggested a correction of the mass concentration measurement based on the aerosol Fuchs active surface, which proved to be efficient within the limits of this study. Finally, we confirmed that the mass concentration measurements obtained with the filter photometry method are OC/TC ratio and wavelength dependent, and we were able to establish OC/TC limits for the overall mass concentration evaluation with the infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths.
This paper focuses on the design of an EMS through a comprehensive methodology encompassing system modelling, controller design, and experimental validation on a fuel-cell (FC)/battery hybrid test bench. The modelling methodology is data-driven and constructed from measurements obtained on our test bench. The primary objective is to reproduce the dynamic behaviour of the FC, with particular emphasis on its polarization characteristics. The proposed modelling approach relies on recurrent neural networks, which are well suited for capturing the temporal inherent dependencies in FC behaviour, thereby allowing accurate prediction of the voltage response for a given current input. When integrated into the overall vehicle model, this data-driven representation provides the foundation for training a reinforcement-learning (RL) based EMS with the state of the art Soft Actor-Critic algorithm. The modelling achieves a root mean squared error of 0.30 V and successfully captured the hysteresis effect of the fuel cell. Combined with an appropriately designed reward function, the EMS effectively addresses the battery charge-sustaining requirement, thereby allowing the optimization target to focus on improving FC efficiency. This combined approach results in stable and high-efficiency FC operation and enables a reduction in hydrogen consumption of 3.5% under experimental conditions. Additionally, the proposed approach consistently drives the system towards the upper region of the fuel-cell efficiency curve where hysteresis effects are reduced, leading to lower consumption and potentially reduced degradation, as supported by the observed system behaviour.
