Application of Adaptive Materials and Coatings to Increase Cutting Tool Performance: Efficiency in the Case of Composite Powder High Speed Steel

The paper proposes a classification of adaptive materials and coatings for tool purposes, showing the ability to adapt to external heat and power influences, thereby improving tool life. Creating a cutting tool made of composite powder high speed steels containing refractory TiC, TiCN, and Al2O3 compounds for milling 41CrS4 steel demonstrated the effectiveness of the adaptive materials. The tool material characteristics under the external loads’ influence and the surface layer adaptation to the heat–power exposure conditions were shown by the temperature field study using a semiartificial microthermocouple method (the level of fields is reduced by 20%–25% for 80% HSS + 20% TiCN), frictional interaction high-temperature tribometry (the coefficient of friction did not exceed 0.45 for 80% HSS + 20% TiCN at +20 and 600 °C), laboratory performance tests, and spectrometry of the surface layer secondary structures. Spectral analysis shows the highest spectrum intensity of TiC2 after 5 min of running in. After 20 min of milling (V = 82 m/min, f = 0.15 mm/tooth), dicarbide decomposes and transits to thermally stable secondary phase films of good lubricity such as TiO (maximum) and TiN (partially). There was an increase in tool life of up to 2 times (>35 min for 80% HSS + 20% TiCN), and a decrease in the roughness of up to 2.9 times (Ra less than 4.5 µm after 25 min of milling).

Dynamic manipulation of droplets using mechanically tunable microtextured chemical gradients

Materials and strategies applicable to the dynamic transport of microdroplets are relevant to surface fluidics, self-cleaning materials, thermal management systems, and analytical devices. Techniques based on electrowetting, topographic micropatterns, and thermal/chemical gradients have advanced considerably, but dynamic microdroplet transport remains a challenge. This manuscript reports the fabrication of mechano-tunable, microtextured chemical gradients on elastomer films and their use in controlled microdroplet transport. Specifically, discreet mechanical deformations of these films enabled dynamic tuning of the microtextures and thus transport along surface-chemical gradients. The interplay between the driving force of the chemical gradient and the microtopography was characterized, facilitating accurate prediction of the conditions (droplet radius and roughness) which supported transport. In this work, the use of microtextured surface chemical gradients in mechano-adaptive materials with microdroplet manipulation functionality was highlighted.

Research Progress of Bionic Adaptive Camouflage Materials

Bionic adaptive camouflage material is a new artificial functional material, whose surface color can change adaptively according to the optical environments. Therefore, how to reduce the visual detectability of this material becomes a research hotspot of digital camouflage stealth technology. In order to clarify the limitations and opportunities of the bionic adaptive camouflage materials in the field of visual stealth, we summarize the applications of current adaptive camouflage materials and carry out a prospect of next-generation photonic crystal infrared camouflage material in this review. It is expected to provide a solution for the demand of digital camouflage adaptive materials in the modern battle field.

Façade Solar Control and Shading Strategies for Buildings in the Mediterranean Region

In recent years, the growing awareness of the possibilities of biomimetic and adaptive materials in architecture has assumed a fundamental importance in the scientific domain, for the high performance of the building façades from an environmental point of view. To meet the housing and comfort needs in climates, such as the ones in the Mediterranean zones, characterized by ever-increasing temperatures, architectural technology must collaborate with nature in an even more decisive way, through increasingly smart and sustainable solutions. The paper reviews a collection of good practice examples of advances in material science, and the method used is to analyze the current performance of and building envelopes with smart façade skins, in order to suggest some potential applications in the Mediterranean basin and regions of the world with similar climatic characteristics.The latter case studies, especially, show built examples of adaptive buildings that could be adopted for use in Mediterranean regions. When the climate characteristics are somehow different, the good practices from elsewhere can be implemented in an innovative way.

Revisiting the Intelligent Book: Towards seamless intelligent content and continuously deployed courses

In the early 2000s, colleagues and I developed The Intelligent Book – a suite of technologies for adaptive materials, that let students work with smart graphical exercises as if the AI was their partner rather than their marker. We envisaged a future where online content would be brimming with interactive models, lettings students explore and tinker with problems alongside AI that would guide students in their thinking. The browsers of the day were technically limited, but since then, the technological landscape of the web has transformed. Meanwhile, online education (especially during the Covid-19 pandemic) has grown the need for interactive materials that “understand what they teach” and can make explanations explorable and “proddable”. In online education, physical group activities (e.g., programming robots) are not available to us, and we see a growing need for digital experiences and models to replace the responsiveness that comes from tangible interaction with a device or experiment. Over the last two years, I have begun revisiting the ideas of the Intelligent Book for the modern technology landscape. This paper gives an early overview of the project, working once again towards infrastructure for self-publishable courses that can be full to overflowing with proddable and explorable models.