Compared with traditional alloys, high-entropy alloys have better mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. However, their mechanical properties and microstructural evolution behavior are unclear due to their complex composition. Machine learning has powerful data processing and analysis capabilities, that provides technical advantages for in-depth study of the mechanical properties of high-entropy alloys. Thus, we combined machine learning and molecular dynamics to predict the mechanical properties of FeNiCrCoCu high-entropy alloys. The optimal multiple linear regression machine learning algorithm predicts that the optimal composition is Fe₃₃Ni₃₂Cr₁₁Co₁₁Cu₁₃ high-entropy alloy, with a tensile strength of 28.25 GPa. Furthermore, molecular dynamics is used to verify the predicted mechanical properties of high-entropy alloys, and it is found that the error between the tensile strength predicted by machine learning and the tensile strength obtained by molecular dynamics simulation is within 0.5%. Moreover, the tensile-compression asymmetry of Fe₃₃Ni₃₂Cr₁₁Co₁₁Cu₁₃ high-entropy alloy increased with the increase of temperature and Cu content and the decrease of Fe content. This is due to the increase in stress caused by twinning during compression and the decrease in stress due to dislocation slip during stretching. Interestingly, high-entropy alloy coatings reduce the tensile-compression asymmetry of nickel; this is attributed to the reduced influence of dislocations and twinning at the interface between the high-entropy alloy and the nickel matrix.

In order to theoretically research the tooth surface maximum contact stress of a Cylindrical Gear with Variable Hyperbolic Circular-Arc-Tooth-Trace (VH-CATT), the computing formula of maximum contact stress of VH-CATT cylindrical gear is investigated according to Hertz formula in this paper. Insufficient contact fatigue strength will lead to pitting corrosion, plastic deformation of tooth surface and other damages. Therefore, the maximum contact stress of tooth surface must be carried out. The contact stress calculation formula is particularly considering the effect of normal force, total carrying length, synthetical curvature radius, and position angle. The present work establishes analytical solutions to research the effect of different parameters for the contact stress of VH-CATT cylindrical gear incorporating elastic deformation on the tooth surface, and which have shown that the different module, transmission ratio, pressure angle, tooth width, and the cutter head radius have a crucial effect on the contact stress and contact ellipse of VH-CATT cylindrical gear along the tooth width direction. Moreover, a finite element analysis is carried out to verify the correctness of the theoretical computing formula of contact stress of VH-CATT cylindrical gear. By contrast with the theoretical calculated value and the stress value of finite element analysis, its error is very small. It is indicated that the derived formula of contact fatigue strength of VH-CATT cylindrical gear has high accuracy and can accurately reflect the real contact stress value of tooth surface, which is beneficial for research on tooth break reduction, pitting, wear resistance and fatigue life improvement of the VH-CATT cylindrical gear. The study results also have a certain reference value for the design and check calculation of the VH-CATT cylindrical gear.

The internationalized higher education in Engineering has made the sustainable future of Chinese regional universities prosper in the recent decade. The teaching practices of engineering courses pose many challenges in Sino–foreign joint undergraduate programs. The design-based learning (DBL) approach addresses students learning challenges in the joint undergraduate program facilitated by the Wuhan University of Science and Technology (WUST) in central China along with Deakin University (DU), Australia. Following the seven general principles of DBL, a project of process planning was performed for teaching and learning in the Manufacturing Technology course. An implicit meta-cognitive competence was developed through performing the engineering project tutoring, diverse learning tasks and normative assessment criteria. The DBL pedagogy succeeds in bridging the diverse knowledge systems in the specialized courses of Manufacturing Technology between Chinese and Australian programs in Mechanical Engineering. Many achievements and awards won by the students demonstrate a satisfactory result in the case study on the teaching practice towards DBL. The pedagogy towards DBL truly improves the teaching quality of the courses in joint programs and further strengthens the internationalized engineering education for the sustainable development of regional universities in China.

To more accurately predict the residual fatigue cycles and estimate the service life of the remanufactured excavator, the fatigue models integrating the corrected S-N curve, the RFC algorithm, the FEA model, and the mechanism dynamic model are established depending on the real load spectra under experimental working conditions and the corrected S-N curve of the beam metal remanufactured with the welding process. Depending on the test data of the unidirectional stress history and the servo displacements of the major cylinders, the mechanism dynamic model was first established to illustrate the real load spectra applied on the pivots of the working beam. The load spectra are further used in the finite element analysis (FEA) model to obtain the stress contours of the beam relevant to the sampling time, which is the stress spectra at any nodes on the beam in theory. Subsequently, the rain flow counting (RFC) algorithm based on the dual parameters of the cyclic stress amplitude and mean is established to provide the frequency spectra in the longevity region on the beam. Furthermore, due to the fatigue property changes of the beam metal remanufactured with the welding process, its S-N curve is corrected based on the detail fatigue rating (DFR) method to compute the stress cycles at each stress level on the crisis nodes. Finally, the total stress cycles that can be burdened by the remanufactured beam is computed under the Miner’s linear fatigue cumulative criterion. The total number of stress cycles is eventually converted to the fatigue and service life depending on the proportion of the sampling time under relevant working conditions. The results show that integrated fatigue models provide a practical approach to enhancing the accuracy of the estimation on the residual service life of the remanufactured excavator beam. It is significant for improving the reliability and safety of the remanufactured excavator.