Under the repeated loading, the continuous impact and friction of tires on aggregates resulted in some changes in their morphology, which may cause rutting, decrease in skid resistance, and fatigue damage of the road. In order to explore specific changes in coarse aggregate morphology, the Los Angeles abrasion test was used to simulate the force exerted on coarse aggregates and the morphologies of different aggregates before and after abrasion were compared. Four types of coarse aggregates were selected and their mineral compositions were analyzed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The morphological characteristics were measured using Aggregate Image Measurement System (AIMS-Ⅱ), including angularity, surface texture, sphericity and Flat and Elongation (F and E) ratio. Results showed that the angularity value for each type of aggregates significantly reduced after abrasion and the angularity reductions of various aggregates were consistent with the results of abrasion test, indicting the angularity reduction was the main component of abrasion loss. Whereas, there was no significant different between the surface texture of coarse aggregates before and after abrasion. For shape properties, both sphericity and F and E ratio results showed that aggregates with excessively high F and E ratio were easy to break, which might cause rutting and were harmful to pavement. Therefore, for pavements with high performance requirement, coarse aggregates with large angularity and low abrasion value should be preferred, whereas the quantity of particles with excessively high F and E ratio should be controlled.

Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) is a promising technology for the efficient and potentially lower-pollutant conversion of coal. However, char formation caused by the polycondensation of aromatic structures hinders the popularization and application of this technology. Promoting the depolymerization of aromatic structures is the key to suppressing char formation and achieving efficient coal gasification. Both methanol and potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) can facilitate the cleavage of aromatic structures. To promote aromatic depolymerization and realize efficient coal gasification, this study systematically investigated the effects of different methanol concentrations and K₂CO₃–methanol coupling systems on the SCWG of Zhundong coal. The results showed that neither methanol alone nor its coupling with K₂CO₃ enhanced the gasification performance of Zhundong coal, as judged by carbon gasification efficiency (CE), hydrogen gasification efficiency (HE), and gas yield, but they altered the distribution of gaseous and liquid products. The co-gasification of methanol and Zhundong coal promoted the generation of CH₄ and C₂H₆ at an appropriate methanol concentration. Specifically, 2.5 wt% methanol accelerated the cleavage of aromatic structures to produce naphthalene and its derivatives, whereas high-concentration methanol mainly promoted the formation of naphthalene and phenolic compounds. In the K₂CO₃–methanol coupling system, K₂CO₃ preferentially catalyzes methanol reforming, thereby weakening the direct catalytic effect of K₂CO₃ on coal gasification. Nevertheless, compared with the theoretical yields calculated assuming no methanol–coal interaction, the CO and CH₄ yields under the condition of 5 wt% methanol coupled with K₂CO₃ reached 2.24-fold and 3.14-fold of the corresponding theoretical values, respectively. Based on the complementary functions of methanol and K₂CO₃, a two-stage regulation strategy was proposed. Specifically, 2.5 wt% methanol was adopted for the aromatic structure pre-cleavage, and 5.0 wt% K₂CO₃ was subsequently added for catalytic gasification. This strategy provided new insights into overcoming the char formation bottleneck during coal SCWG.

Metallic glasses (MGs) exhibit excellent mechanical properties, yet their poor tensile ductility greatly limits their practical applications as structural and functional materials. Shear banding is a typical localized rheological deformation behavior inherent to amorphous materials, which stems from heterogeneous atomic rearrangement and regional viscosity fluctuations in the glassy matrix, and fundamentally determines the macroscopic mechanical properties of MGs and their composites. This review discusses the relationship between typical toughening strategies and shear banding behavior, and proposes that deliberate suppression of shear band (SB) initiation or deceleration of their rapid propagation can effectively promote distributed plastic flow. In this review, nanosizing and metamaterial strategies are shown to hinder the formation of mature SBs, while metallic glass matrix composites (MGMCs), nanoglasses (NGs), notched design, and rejuvenation treatments contribute to restraining SB propagation. Current approaches have successfully regulated shear banding behavior and thereby realized appreciable tensile ductility in MGs. Novel design and fabrication techniques for amorphous alloys, which suppress SB initiation and retard SB propagation to achieve homogeneous plastic flow, open up new avenues for realizing controllable plasticity of MGs.

Morphological characteristics of coarse aggregates, namely shape, angularity and surface texture, are closely related to rock mineral compositions and crushing mechanisms. Aggregates with different mineral compositions should be crushed using a suitable crusher. To explore the influence of mineral and crusher types on aggregate morphology, this study investigated the effect of the mineral compositions and crushing operations on the morphologies of coarse aggregates. Six types of major rock-forming minerals (i.e., quartz, amphibole, potassium feldspar, sodium feldspar, calcite and pyroxene) were selected and two typical crushers (i.e., jaw crusher and impact crusher) were used. The morphology parameters (i.e., angularity, texture, sphericity and F&E) of coarse aggregates were measured using the Aggregate Image Measurement SystemII (AIMSII). Further, the morphologies of different aggregates produced by two crushers were compared. The results showed that the angularity values of some aggregates crushed by a jaw crusher (average 3451) were bigger than those by an impact crusher (average 3067) and the angularity of the harder mineral was less affected by the crusher. For surface texture, there was no significant difference between these two crushers, with average texture index of 333.83 for the impact crusher and 332.67 for the jaw crusher, indicating that the surface texture of aggregates was mainly affected by their compositions and barely influenced by the crushing operations. The shape results indicated that the impact crusher produced more cubical aggregate particles compared to the jaw crusher, with average sphericity of 0.666 versus 0.607, whereas the jaw crusher produced aggregates with more elongated or flat particles, with an average F and E index of 3.331 versus 2.726. This study fills the research gap that few previous investigations focused on—the crushing morphology of single mineral aggregates—and the findings help us to understand the effect of the mineral compositions and crushing operations on the morphologies of coarse aggregates, which in turn guides the selection of suitable crushers for different minerals.