The lightweight alloy sheet materials have been widely used in industries such as automobiles, aviation, and aerospace. However, there are huge challenges in the structural joining process. Likewise, industries are probing new technologies and are rapidly adapting to more complex light alloy materials. The ultrasonic metal welding is a reliable solid-phase joining technology, which has incomparable development prospects in the high-strength joining of lightweight alloy sheet materials. This article summarizes the research progress of ultrasonic welding of aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, and titanium alloy thin plates in recent years. The key features of this review article are the ultrasonic welding process, advantages, applications, and limitations. It introduces the welding process parameters to explore the breakthroughs for straightforward direction. Furthermore, to strengthen the phenomena, the current state of the ultrasonic welding of lightweight alloys and their future perspectives are also reflected.

This study investigates the role of emerged vegetation in enhancing the performance of submerged spur dikes for better flow control and bank protection in river systems. The research utilizes a numerical model based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), validated with experimental data. After validation, the study explores various configurations of vegetated spur dike, adjusting the submergence heights of the impermeable spur dike to achieve porosity ranging from fully impermeable to highly porous. Porosity levels of 24%, 48%, and 72% were chosen based on the spur dike height and the effectiveness of staggered vegetation arrangements in maximizing drag and reducing velocity. This approach aims to determine their impact on flow structure, velocity, and turbulence characteristics. The results reveal that impermeable dikes create strong recirculation zones downstream, increasing the potential for bank erosion. Introducing vegetation on the dike, particularly at moderate porosities (24% and 48%), effectively disrupts this behavior by reducing downstream velocity and mitigating mass and momentum exchange concentration between the spur dike field and the mainstream. However, the highest porosity case (72%) offered reduced flow resistance, limiting its protective effectiveness. Analysis of velocity and stress distributions showed that vegetation porosity significantly impacts normal and shear stresses, influencing flow stability at critical points around the spur dike. The findings signify the potential of integrating vegetation into spur dike designs to achieve a balance between effective flow conveyance and erosion control even in the spur dike submergence condition. This approach can outperform conventional emerged impermeable spur dikes, as supported by previous studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of porous and vegetated structures in reducing flow resistance, minimizing stagnation zones, and improving sediment deposition compared to impermeable designs.

Low‐head turbines are becoming an agricultural imperative due to their high efficiency, low cost, ability to operate at low flow rates and minimal environmental impact. Therefore, the Archimedes screw turbine (AST) can play a leading role for producing electric power, especially in Pakistan's rural areas where most of the places have less than 1 m head. In this research work, performance evaluation of AST was carried out at different flow velocities in terms of power coefficient and torque generated. Design parameters such as blade width, blade pitches, and blade rotational angles are also used for performance evaluation. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analyses of AST blades were conducted at different water flow velocities (e.g., 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, and 3.5 m/s). ANSYS FLUENT was used for AST blade simulations using three different design parameters such as blade width, blade pitch, and blade rotational angles. Additionally, CFD simulations have inherent errors and uncertainties that may lead to findings and deviations from their exact or real values. To prevent these uncertainties and errors, an experimental study was also conducted to provide validation for the CFD simulation results. The results revealed from CFD simulations for optimized design parameters were then compared with experimental data. From the results, it was examined that the numerical findings were in good agreement with the experiment data. The highest power coefficient and power output values were obtained under optimized design parameters such as inner and outer diameter, blade pitch, blade width, blade rotation angles and shaft length (e.g., 40 mm, 120 mm, 130 mm, 2 mm, 60°, and 850 mm respectively). The findings can be useful to implement the AST unit for those places where the available water head is ranging from 1 to 6.5 m and a flow rate of 0.2–6.5 m³/s, especially for rural areas of Pakistan.

This research reports the implementation of logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) and categorizes the growth of total energy usage in three different industrial sectors for the years of 2010 to 2021. Furthermore, it classifies and evaluates the factors influencing on energy consumption in Punjab province thru a sustainable way. The growth consumption is classified into scale influence, structure influence, and efficiency influence. Likewise, the long-term energy alternatives planning-Punjab model is executed with the energy consumption, scale impact, structure impact, and efficiency impact. Besides, comprehensive adjustment scenarios are also introduced to examine the impact of three different factors on overall energy usage. The results from the qualitative decomposition of LMDI indicate that the high scale can lead to high-energy consumption in Punjab Province. However, it can be reduced by high-efficiency reinforcement. The total energy consumption in 2024, 2036, and 2044 under reference scenario is 304.12, 460.01, and 590.04 million tons compared to structure influence analysis for slow terminology (SIAS) and comprehensive scenario. For that reason, it can predict and provide earlier energy management planning for the province. Conversely, the structure factor does not display obvious effect on the energy use. Equally, the quantitative results of the long-term energy alternative planning (LEAP) model are relatively consistent with those of LMDI model, whose advantageous impact on the structure influence is reasonably extrapolated. This phenomenon indicates that the structure influence and efficiency influence will maintain the disruptive impact on increasing overall energy use for the future perspectives. Consequently, the LEAP model predicts the energy consumption of Punjab Province among the years of 2020 to 2040 under medium-term development framework.