Background: Nowadays, the engineering vascular grafts with a diameter less than 6 mm by means of electrospinning, is an attracted alternative technique to create different three-dimensional microenvironments with appropriate physicochemical properties to promote the nutrient transport and to enable the bioactivity, dynamic growth and differentiation of cells. Although the performance of a well-designed porous wall is key for these functional requirements maintaining the mechanical function, yet predicting the flow rate and cellular transport are still not widely understood and many questions remain open about new configurations of wall can be used for modifying the conventional electrospun samples. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of fabrication techniques on scaffolds composed of bovine gelatin and polycaprolactone (PCL) developed by sequential electrospinning and co-electrospinning, on the morphology and fluid-mechanical properties of the porous wall. Methodology: For this purpose, small diameter tubular structures were manufactured and experimental tests were performed to characterize the crystallinity, morphology, wettability, permeability, degradability, and mechanical properties. Some samples were cross-linked with Glutaraldehyde (GA) to improve the stability of the gelatin fiber. In addition, it was analyzed how the characteristics of the scaffold favored the levels of cell adhesion and proliferation in an in vitro model of 3T3 fibroblasts in incubation periods of 24, 48 and 72 h. Results: It was found that in terms of the morphology of tubular scaffolds, the co-electrospun samples had a better alignment with higher values of fiber diameters and apparent pore area than the sequential samples. The static permeability was more significant in the sequential scaffolds and the hydrophilic was higher in the co-electrospun samples. Therefore, the gelatin mass losses were less in the co-electrospun samples, which promote cellular functions. In terms of mechanical properties, no significant differences were observed for different types of samples. Conclusion: This research concluded that the tubular scaffolds generated by sequential and co-electrospinning with modification in the microarchitecture could be used as a vascular graft, as they have better permeability and wettability, interconnected pores, and a circumferential tensile strength similar to native vessel compared to the commercial graft analyzed.

Diagnosing lithium‐ion battery degradation is a crucial part of managing energy storage systems. Recent research has explored ultrasonic testing for non‐invasive health assessment as an alternative to traditional, time‐consuming, electrical‐only methods. Assessing the state of health is vital for determining quality at end of ‘first’ life, with retired batteries at 70–80 % health still holding value for secondlife applications. Over the coming years, tens of GWh of salvaged batteries will hit the market, requiring rapid noninvasive methods to classify retired batteries according to their state of health. This study uses a 64 – element ultrasonic array to obtain mid‐band quantitative ultrasound spectroscopy parameters – including mid‐band fit, spectral slope, and intercept – from circumferential waves around cylindrical batteries. Thirteen cylindrical cells were used to evaluate the methodology: three pristine and ten retired from the same source. The mid‐band fit showed the ability to track the state of charge and discriminate between the state of health levels in accelerated degradation experiments both with pristine batteries, and also with recovered secondlife batteries with unknown historical use. Linear‐array ultrasonic transducers, coupled with quantitative spectral parameters, show promise for future non‐destructive battery health screening methods, offering valuable insights for the emerging used battery market.

This work addresses the development of an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), required to obtain reliable visual information, used for surveillance and maintenance of ship shells and underwater structures of Colombian port facilities and oceanographic research. The most relevant design constraints were evaluated considering environmental conditions, dimensional restrictions, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, degrees of freedom and the availability of instrumentation and control hardware. The mechanical/naval design was performed through an iterative process by using computational tools CAD/CAE/CFD. The hardware architecture was divided in three layers: instrumentation, communications and control. The software was developed using ANSI C with Embedded Linux operating system. The guidance and navigation system used the Kalman filter to estimate the state of the vehicle. The vehicle can operate in manual and semi-automatic modes. In the semi-automatic, the position of a joystick is converted into the velocity set-points that are integrated to get the yaw and depth commands for the PID controllers. The rigorous design and a consistent construction processes allowed the development of a robust and reliable robotic system that constitutes an innovative product in Colombia.

Textile vascular grafts are biomedical devices and play an important role serving as a solution for the partial replacement of damaged arterial vessels. It is believed that the success of a textile vascular graft, in the healing process after implantation, is due to the porous micro-structure of the wall. Although the transport of fluids through textiles is of great technical interest in biomedical applications, little is known about predicting the micro-flow pattern and cellular transport through the wall. The aim of this work is to investigate how the type of fabric, permeability and porosity affect both the local fluid dynamics at several scales and the fluid-particle interaction between platelets in textile grafts, related with the graft occlusion. This study involves both experimental and computational tests. Experimental tests are performed to characterize the permeability and porosity according to the ISO 7198 standard. The numerical process is based on a multi-scale approach where the fluid flow is solved with the Finite Element Method and the discrete particles are solved with the Molecular Dynamic Method. The results have shown that the type of fabric in textile vascular grafts and the degree of porosity and permeability affect both the local fluid dynamics and the level of penetration of platelets through the wall, thus indicating their importance as design parameters.

This article presents theoretical and computational studies with Computational Fluids Dynamics (CFD) tools of an Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), required to obtain reliable visual information, used for surveillance and maintenance of ship shells and underwater structures of Colombian port facilities. The thrust force is analyzed at the operational conditions by using CFD tools (FLUENT™, CFX™, COSMOSFLOW™) and the information about forces, torques and power of the vehicle’s thrusters is obtained. The commercial propellers were modeled by using a reverse engineering process with a 3D scanner and Computer Aided Design (CAD) software (RAPIDFORM™). The results obtained with the CFD package allowed to evaluate several operating scenarios of the vehicle that are used for feedback purposes in the design process of the ROV before it be manufactured.

The present study explores novel alternatives for the exploitation of sugarcane bagasse ash by obtaining and modifying SiO₂ nanoparticles through a green synthesis method. The hydrophilic nature of the nanoparticles was modified using oleic acid. The nanoparticles were characterized using FTIR, FESEM, and DLS, and their performance in the stabilization of Pickering emulsions was also studied. FESEM micrographs of the nanoparticles revealed an irregular and agglomerated structure. EDS confirmed that their main components are oxygen and silicon, and ATR-FTIR spectra demonstrated that oleic acid effectively modified the nanoparticles. Subsequently, O/W Pickering emulsions were fabricated by combining rotor–stator homogenization and probe ultra-sonication, using dodecane and liquid paraffin as model oil phases and SiO₂ NPs as stabilizers. Static light scattering measurements showed that the emulsions exhibited polydispersity, while photographic monitoring confirmed that their physical stability was affected by the concentrations of oleic acid and nanoparticles: concentrations of up to 20.0 wt% and 1.0 wt%, respectively, produced emulsions that remained stable for 7 to 15 days. This study identifies the behavior and challenges associated with novel pathways for the valorization of sugarcane bagasse ash. The stabilization of Pickering emulsions using the obtained SiO₂ NPs highlights their potential in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food applications.