Kuzbass State Technical University

TiB2–Ag coatings are deposited by electroexplosive spraying on a copper surface for the first time. The idea of creating such coatings is based on the high properties of the initial materials used to form the coatings, namely, titanium diboride and silver. Silver is used to create a matrix with a high electrical conductivity, and titanium diboride, in turn, serves as a wear-resistant, hard, electroerosion-resistant filler for the matrix. Moreover, titanium diboride has a high electrical conductivity among other similar fillers, such as tungsten and molybdenum. The essence of the work is that TiB2–Ag coatings are deposited onto a copper target–substrate by electroexplosive spraying. Electroexplosive spraying is carried out using a silver foil and a titanium diboride powder under the conditions that ensure melting of the copper target–substrate. The deposited coatings are intended for use in electrical contact switching devices. Therefore, we study the following minimum basic properties necessary for the stable operation of electrical contacts in switching devices: microhardness, nanohardness, Young’s modulus, wear coefficient, friction coefficient, electrical conductivity, and switching wear resistance. The following main results have been obtained. The electrical conductivity of the TiB2–Ag coating is 62.0 MS/m. The coating withstands 7000 switching cycles during accelerated electroerosion resistance tests. The electrical resistance does not exceed 12.82 μΩ. The Vickers microhardness in the silver matrix of the coating is 0.251–0.265 GPa, and that at titanium diboride inclusions is 25–32 GPa. The nanohardness is H = 4.48 ± 0.76 GPa and Young’s modulus is E = 116 ± 29 GPa. Under dry sliding friction conditions, the wear parameter is 1.2 mm3/(N m) and the friction coefficient is 0.5. X-ray diffraction analysis demonstrates that the coating contains silver (a = 4.0779 Å, CSR = 42) and titanium diboride (a = 3.0535 Å, c = 3.2618 Å, CSR = 38). Scanning electron microscopy demonstrates that the coating 100–110 μm thick has a composite filled structure, which consists of a silver matrix with titanium diboride inclusions 1–20 μm in size. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrates that the main phase of the coating is silver or an Ag + Cu solid solution reinforced with titanium diboride nanoparticles.

THE PURPOSE. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact of key parameters of the electric vehicle (EV) fleet and electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) on electricity consumption and peak power demand in Russia's power system in the medium and long term. In contrast to existing research, the focus is not only on forecasting the number of EVs but also on a scenario-based analysis of a wide range of influencing factors.METHODS. A mathematical model was developed to calculate the electricity consumption and maximum power demand of EVCI for all Russian cities with a population exceeding 50,000. The model accounts for the regional distribution of the EV fleet, its structure and model composition, climatic conditions, EVCI specifications, and behavioral factors. The significance of the factors was assessed using multiple linear regression.RESULTS. It was found that for an EV fleet of 1 million units, the variation in influencing factors can lead to changes in EVCI electricity consumption ranging from 0.14% to 0.62%, and in peak power demand from 0.09% to 2.26% of the 2024 levels of Russia's Unified Energy System (UES). The EVCI parameters have the greatest impact on peak power demand: the number of EVs per charging station (37.1%) and the share of fast chargers (20.8%), along with the share of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (23.7%). Electricity consumption is most significantly influenced by the share of plug-in hybrids (32.3%), their utilization rate (26.3%), and the share of electric buses in the fleet (21.6%). The forecast up to 2050 shows that EVCI electricity consumption could reach 8.13-11.85%, and peak power demand could reach 11.54- 16.81% of the 2024 levels.

Electric load forecasting plays an important role in smart grid scheduling and operation optimization. However, existing methods still have limitations in multi-target joint modeling, integration of external weather features, and capturing nonlinear relationships. This paper proposes BiKAN-LoadNet, a multi-target load forecasting model that combines Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) networks with a Kolmogorov–Arnold Network (KAN). The model uses BiLSTM to capture long- and short-term dependencies in load sequences, applies a residual connection to retain recent fine-grained variations, and integrates a weather feature encoding module to incorporate the impact of meteorological factors. The output layer adopts KAN to enhance nonlinear fitting capability and achieve joint prediction of daily average, maximum, and minimum loads. Experiments on real-world electric load datasets show that BiKAN-LoadNet achieves significant improvements in RMSE, MAE, and MAPE compared to existing methods. The results demonstrate that BiKAN-LoadNet effectively combines temporal patterns with external weather information, achieving high accuracy and strong stability in multi-target load forecasting tasks, and providing an efficient solution for smart grid load management. The code for reproducing main experiments are available at https://github.com/lianghesiit-code/BiKAN-LoadNet.

Small and medium-sized businesses play a vital role in the country's socioeconomic development and strengthening industrial sovereignty. Small and medium-sized businesses create new jobs, stimulating competition in the labor market, reducing unemployment, and increasing tax revenues. Therefore, the government recognizes the need to provide timely support for small and medium-sized businesses in the form of favorable economic, legal, and political conditions for their effective development. The main problem hindering the development and prosperity of small businesses in Russia is the constant need to attract financial resources, which is due to a lack of internal funds for working capital, investment projects, and other purposes. Small and medium-sized firms experience a particularly high need for additional funds in the early stages of their development and during periods of business expansion. Improving the efficiency of funding methods, including the use of innovative, technological instruments and the implementation of financial support measures, can reduce the impact of negative trends on the small and medium-sized business sector in the Russian economy.

The article discusses the existing types of conveyor belt catchers. The catchers are divided into categories based on their method of impact on the conveyor belt in the event of a breakage. The article also examines the disadvantages of these catchers from the perspective of their safe use in transporting people using conveyor belts. The article concludes that there is currently no effective design solution for a conveyor belt catcher that ensures its safe use. The features of the design of the belt conveyor's catcher device used on the cargo-people break-off conveyor have been established, taking into account modern safety requirements. The knife-type executive body of the belt conveyor's catcher device, which is a sharpened bar shaped like a trough, has been chosen as the optimal design. A finite element modeling of a single actuator of a belt conveyor catching device was carried out to determine the behavior of the catcher actuator design with different directions and angles of sharpening. The following options for sharpening the actuator scraper are considered: sharpening the actuator scraper from the side of the broken belt movement; sharpening the actuator scraper from the side opposite to the broken belt movement; double-sided sharpening of the actuator scraper (with the same angle on each side). As a result of computer modeling, the maximum displacement of the individual actuator's structural elements was determined, depending on the angle of sharpening of the scraper of the belt conveyor's catcher actuator, and the resulting reactive moment relative to the catcher supports. Computer modeling of models of elements of the scraper of the executive body with different options and angles of sharpening and determined the forces at which the edge of the sharpened scraper is irreversibly deformed at the point of contact with the conveyor belt. It is established that the option of sharpening the scraper of the executive body does not have a significant effect on its strength.