This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of recent advancements in the application of thermal spraying techniques to enhance the durability and wear resistance of agricultural machinery components, with a particular focus on disc harrow assemblies. Given the harsh conditions under which tillage tools operate—characterized by abrasive wear, impact stresses, and chemical exposure from various soil types—thermal sprayed coatings have emerged as a viable solution to extend the service life of these components. The study discusses various deposition methods, particularly Atmospheric Plasma Spraying (APS), and evaluates their effectiveness in creating high-performance surface layers that resist wear, corrosion, and mechanical degradation. The review also summarizes experimental and field test results for coatings based on materials such as NiCrBSi, WC-Co-Cr, TiO₂, Al₂O₃, Cr₂O_3, and ceramic–metal composites, highlighting their significant improvements in hardness, friction reduction, and resistance to delamination and oxidation. The paper highlights research using thermal spraying techniques, especially APS for agricultural applications, with emphasis mostly on components intended for soil processing and requiring good resistance to abrasive wear.

The paper concerns with the general assembly conditions and circumstances that could cause fatal damage to an internal combustion engine during operation. In the first part, the focus is on identifying the majority of dysfunctions that may result in the connecting rod destruction. Possible causes of the connecting rod destruction that led to engine failure are presented sequentially, starting with those of conceptual nature (the right choice of material, constructive solution and cross-sectional design from a geometric-dimensional point of view), then passing through issues related to operation (the severity of thermal and mechanical operation - and lubrication regimes) and last but not least, the effects of accumulated fatigue and potential structural defects of the material. This review of possible causes takes into account the particularities induced by the ignition engines and by the type of equipped machinery. The synthesis contains a case study on a 6-L medium displacement diesel engine in which the damage cause is accurately identified and which has been investigated with a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

In recent years, automobile manufactures have been required to meet stringent fuel consumption specification. An important factor with regard to this problem is the operating temperature and its effect on functional parameters. In this paper, the effect of heat transfer on the various parameters such as inlet mixture temperature, compression ratio, exhaust gas, fuel consumption, lubrication oil of a spark ignition engine is studied. A number of studies have been reported which dealt with the thermal analysis of the structure of internal combustion engine. Because of the complexity of the problem, these analyses are approximate. Thus, to improve the accuracy of the results of the thermal analysis, we must work with experimental results prelevated from a 24 valve – 6 cylinder spark ignition engine. Included are comparisons between cooling characteristics of the water solutions with those of 100% ethylene glycol coolant.

Waste heat recovery from automotive exhaust gases represents an important strategy for improving vehicle energy efficiency. This study experimentally investigates the performance of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) system based on TEC1-12706 modules running under different cold-side cooling conditions and incorporating a Hot Rolled Steel (HRS) protective layer on the hot side. The HRS plate was used to ensure uniform heat distribution and protect the thermoelectric module against thermal shocks generated by a 250 °C heat source. Four cooling regimes were experimentally analyzed: natural convection and forced airflows equivalent to 40, 60, and 90 km/h. The results proved that increasing airflow intensity significantly improved the temperature difference across the module, from approximately 16 ± 2 °C under natural convection to nearly 40 ± 2 °C at the highest airflow velocity. Correspondingly, the steady-state voltage generated increased from approximately 0.25 ± 0.01 V to over 0.60 ± 0.01 V under an 82 Ω resistive load. The measured hot-side temperature remained below 75 °C in all experimental conditions, confirming the thermal protection capability of the HRS layer. The experimental data also revealed a near-linear relationship between voltage and temperature difference, consistent with the Seebeck effect. The proposed configuration shows the feasibility of combining thermal protection and forced convection cooling to improve the stability and electrical performance of thermoelectric waste heat recovery systems intended for low-power automotive auxiliary applications.

The paper focuses on current algorithms for calculating the traffic capacity of the road sections, provided in various national standards. These algorithms were jointly considering some common groups of factors, such as factors related to the dynamic performance of vehicles and factors related to geometrical - dimensional configuration of the road. The algorithms have particular forms for continuous traffic flow and for discontinuous traffic. As a first stage, there were considered the algorithms for the continuous flows, for which were studied the points of extreme variance for traffic capacity, depending on the running speed. Maximum traffic capacity analytical form for a road section, in continuous traffic flow variant does not depend explicitly of average speed, but allows the evaluation of certain important factors (length section, acceleration at start-up, braking deceleration of vehicles, driver's perception-reaction time, brake friction coefficient, etc.). Consequently, various ways are identified to improve road traffic capacity. The paper justifies reconsideration of the notion of traffic fluence as defined by various national standards; as it stands, the definition of fluency is artificial in relation to the maximum legal speed on that road section, even though the value of that speed is physically impossible.

The virtual high speed diesel engine developed by the authors focused also on combustion product formation, their prediction being possible based on detailed numerical simulation of the processes that overlap in the combustion chamber. Formation of nitrogen oxides consider extended Zeldovich mechanism and the production of combustion compounds with significant concentrations occurs in the hypothesis of excess air oxidation, being carried out according to Gartner's chemical balance. The heat input is based on distinct thermodynamic evolution characterized by constant polytropic exponents. The volume of the mixture in the combustion chamber was discretized at the level of a control micro volume, with precise initial and boundary conditions. Simulation results in the dependencies of compounds of the combustion gases according to the polytropic exponent, at a random regime. This opens the way for the study of complex influence factors which condition the polytropic exponent, upon the combustion product composition.