In order to meet the requirements of high corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and self-lubrication of composite coatings for marine applications, epoxy matrix composite coatings containing PTFE and TiO₂ nanoparticles were prepared on the steel substrate. With silane coupling agent KH570 (CH₂=C(CH₃)COOC₃H₆Si(OCH₃)₃), titanium dioxide nanoparticles were modified, and organic functional groups were grafted on their surface to improve their dispersion and interface compatibility in the epoxy matrix. Then, the section morphology, tribological, and anticorrosion properties of prepared coatings, including pure epoxy, epoxy–PTFE, and the composite coating with unmodified and modified TiO₂, respectively, were fully characterized by scanning electron microscopy, friction–abrasion testing machine, and an electrochemical workstation. The analytical results show that the modified TiO₂ nanoparticles are able to improve the epoxy–PTFE composite coating’s mechanical properties of epoxy–PTFE composite coating including section toughness, hardness, and binding force. With the synergistic action of the friction reduction of PTFE and dispersion enhancement of TiO₂ nanoparticles, the dry friction coefficient decreases by more than 73%. Simultaneously, modified titanium dioxide will not have much influence on the water contact angles of the coating. A larger water contact angle and uniform and compact microstructure make the composite coating incorporated modified TiO₂ nanoparticles show excellent anti-corrosion ability, which has the minimum corrosion current density of 1.688 × 10⁻⁷ A·cm⁻².

The aim of this paper is to obtain Cu–Sn composite coatings incorporated with PTFE and TiO₂ particles, which have superior antiwear and friction reduction properties. Electrodeposition was carried out in a pyrophosphate electrolyte, and the electrochemical behavior of the plating solutions was estimated. PTFE emulsion and TiO₂ sol were prepared and used, of which the average particle sizes were less than 283 and 158 nm, respectively. Then, four different types of coatings, Cu–Sn, Cu–Sn–TiO₂, Cu–Sn–PTFE and Cu–Sn–PTFE–TiO_2, were electroplated with a pulsed power supply. Their microstructure, composition, microhardness, corrosion resistance and tribological properties were then analyzed and compared in detail. The results show that both PTFE and TiO₂ are able to improve coating structure and corrosion resistance, while they have different effects on hardness and tribological properties. However, the presence of both PTFE and TiO₂ in the deposited coating leads to a lower friction coefficient of 0.1 and higher wear and corrosion resistance.

Aluminum alloy plays an important role in industrial applications, but has a high friction coefficient and a high wear rate. On the basis of anodic oxidation treatment on an aluminum alloy surface, copper nanowires are deposited into the anodic alumina membrane pores by direct current (DC) electrolytic treatment to prepare a composite alumina membrane, which significantly improves the tribological properties of the aluminum alloy surface. In this process, in order to obtain a highly-ordered nanoporous alumina membrane with a thin enough barrier layer for further processing, after the first anodic oxidation in phosphoric acid (0.3 mol/L), the obtained alumina membrane is modified by anodizing it in a phosphoric acid-ammonium hexafluorosilicate bath, in combination with a step-by-step voltage drop without oxide removal. By this method, the resistance of the modified alumina membrane is also reduced greatly, which facilitates the deposition of copper nanowires in the sulfate bath. It is found that the composite alumina membrane filled with copper nanowires has a low friction coefficient of about 0.25 and effectively improves the friction condition, giving the surface a self-lubricating property.

The influence of elements in steel on anode plasma electrolytic boriding has been studied. The modified layers and surfaces on steel samples were analyzed by a scanning electron microscope, an X-ray diffractometer, a surface profiler, a microhardness tester, and a ball-disc tribometer. With 1045 steel as the control group, the same treatment parameters (treatment with 5 min, 200 V of voltage, 5% boric acid, and 10% ammonium chloride) were implemented on various steel substrates. It was found that a low content of carbon would hinder the penetration of boron, and other metallic elements can improve the mircrohardness gradient and decrease the wear-rate. Chromium and manganese can increase the maximum microhardness than treated 1045 by about 15%, but have a detrimental effect on surface flatness. Nevertheless, manganese has the ability to rapidly create a layer of oxide that enhances the tribological characteristics, leading to a remarkably low average friction coefficient of 0.26 for 1046 steel. The presence of molybdenum in the element composition of 4140 steel results in a notable enhancement of surface properties, namely in terms of wear resistance, with a minimum wear-rate 2.1 × 10⁻⁶ g/Nm for 4140 steel. Nickel does not appear to have a notable impact on the surface characteristics of the modified samples.

To address the issue of low accuracy in identifying the transition states of rolling bearing performance degradation when relying solely on vibration signals, this study proposed a vibration–temperature fusion-based adaptive method for bearing performance degradation assessments. First, a multidimensional time–frequency feature set was constructed by integrating vibration acceleration and temperature signals. Second, a novel composite sensitivity index (CSI) was introduced, incorporating the trend persistence, monotonicity, and signal complexity to perform preliminary feature screening. Mutual information clustering and regularized entropy weight optimization were then combined to reselect highly sensitive parameters from the initially screened features. Subsequently, an adaptive feature fusion method based on auto-associative kernel regression (AFF-AAKR) was introduced to compress the data in the spatial dimension while enhancing the degradation trend characterization capability of the health indicator (HI) through a temporal residual analysis. Furthermore, the entropy weight method was employed to quantify the information entropy differences between the vibration and temperature signals, enabling dynamic weight allocation to construct a comprehensive HI. Finally, a dual-criteria adaptive bottom-up merging algorithm (DC-ABUM) was proposed, which achieves bearing life-stage identification through error threshold constraints and the adaptive optimization of segmentation quantities. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method outperformed traditional vibration-based life-stage identification approaches.

Facing the challenges brought by the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation under the context of New Engineering Education, this paper proposes an innovation talent cultivation model for mechanical engineering called "One Core, Two Wings." This model aims to comprehensively enhance students' overall quality and innovation ability by constructing a curriculum system that integrates both general and specialized knowledge with a spiral development approach ("One Core"), along with a hybrid teaching organization and a practice-driven teaching model ("Two Wings"). The paper elaborates on methods for course reconstruction, including building a networked bridge connecting multi-disciplinary knowledge fragments, optimizing the integration of general engineering courses, and incorporating frontier knowledge from mechanical engineering into the specialized education curriculum. It also introduces a hybrid teaching and research organizational structure, as well as a practice-driven teaching mode, where real-world engineering problems, cases, projects, and research outcomes from industry are brought into classroom teaching through a collaborative model of industry-university cooperation. Through these innovative measures, this paper aims to provide a systematic solution for the cultivation of mechanical engineering talents, as well as for the wider New Engineering Education talent training, to foster interdisciplinary and innovative talents capable of leading technological innovation and solving complex engineering problems.