Filtering nonwovens produced with melt-blown technology are one of the most basic materials used in the construction of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) against harmful aerosols, including bio- and nanoaerosols. The improvement of their filtering properties can be achieved by the development of quasi-permanent electric charge on the fibres. Usually corona discharge method is utilized for this purpose. In the presented study, it was assumed that the low-temperature plasma treatment could be applied as an alternative method for the manufacturing of conventional electret nonwovens for the RPE construction. Low temperature plasma treatment of polypropylene nonwovens was carried out with various process gases (argon, nitrogen, oxygen or air) in a wide range of process parameters (gas flow velocity, time of treatment and power supplied to the reactor electrodes). After the modification, nonwovens were evaluated in terms of filtration efficiency of paraffin oil mist. The stability of the modification results was tested after 12 months of storage and after conditioning at elevated temperature and relative humidity conditions. Moreover, scanning electron microscopy and ATR-IR spectroscopy were used to assess changes in surface topography and chemical composition of the fibres. The modification of melt-blown nonwovens with nitrogen, oxygen and air plasma did not result in a satisfactory improvement of the filtration efficiency. In case of argon plasma treatment, up to 82% increase of filtration efficiency of paraffin oil mist was observed in relation to untreated samples. This effect was stable after 12 months of storage in normal conditions and after thermal conditioning in (70 ± 3)°C for 24 h. The use of low-temperature plasma treatment was proven to be a promising improvement direction of filtering properties of nonwovens used for the protection of respiratory tract against harmful aerosols.

In this work, T-shaped mould design was used to generate hot spot and the effect of Sr and B on the hot tearing susceptibility of A356 was investigated. The die temperature was kept at 250o C and the pouring was carried out at 740o C. The amonut of Sr and B additions were 30 and 10 ppm, respectively. One of the most important defects that may exist in cast aluminium is the presence of bifilms. Bifilms can form by the surface turbulence of liquid metal. During such an action, two unbonded surfaces of oxides fold over each other which act as a crack. Therefore, this defect cause many problems in the cast part. In this work, it was found that bifilms have significant effect over the hot tearing of A356 alloy. When the alloy solidifies directionally, the structure consists of elongated dendritic structure. In the absence of equiaxed dendrites, the growing tips of the dendrites pushed the bifilms to open up and unravel. Thus, leading to enlarged surface of oxide to become more harmful. In this case, it was found that these bifilms initiate hot tearing.

Drops of molten cast iron were placed on moulding sand substrates. The composition of the forming gaseous atmosphere was examined. It

was found that as a result of the cast iron contact with water vapour released from the sand, a significant amount of hydrogen was evolved.

In all the examined moulding sands, including sands without carbon, a large amount of CO was formed. The source of carbon monoxide

was carbon present in cast iron. In the case of bentonite moulding sand with seacoal and sand bonded with furan resin, in the composition

of the gases, the trace amounts of hydrocarbons, i.e. benzene, toluene, styrene and naphthalene (BTX), appeared. As the formed studies

indicate much higher content of BTX at lower temperature it was concluded that the hydrocarbons are unstable in contact with molten

iron

At thermal junctions of aluminium alloy castings and at points where risering proves to be difficult there appear internal or external

shrinkages, which are both functionally and aesthetically inadmissible. Applying the Probat Fluss Mikro 100 agent, which is based on

nano-oxides of aluminium, results in the appearance of a large amount of fine microscopic pores, which compensate for the shrinking of

metal. Experimental tests with gravity die casting of AlSi8Cu3 and AlSi10Mg alloys have confirmed that the effect of the agent can be of

advantage in foundry practice, leading to the production of castings without local concentrations of defects and without the appearance of

shrinkages and macroscopic gas pores. Also, beneficial effect on the mechanical properties of the metal has been observed.

A356 is one of the widely used aluminium casting alloy that has been used in both sand and die casting processes. Large amounts of scrap

metal can be generated from the runner systems and feeders. In addition, chips are generated in the machined parts. The surface area with

regard to weight of chips is so high that it makes these scraps difficult to melt. Although there are several techniques evolved to remedy

this problem, yet the problem lies in the quality of the recycled raw material. Since recycling of these scrap is quite important due to the

advantages like energy saving and cost reduction in the final product, in this work, the recycling efficiency and casting quality were

investigated. Three types of charges were prepared for casting: %100 primary ingot, %100 scrap aluminium and fifty-fifty scrap

aluminium and primary ingot mixture were used. Melt quality was determined by calculating bifilm index by using reduced pressure test.

Tensile test samples were produced by casting both from sand and die moulds. Relationship between bifilm index and tensile strength were

determined as an indication of correlation of melt quality. It was found that untreated chips decrease the casting quality significantly.

Therefore, prior to charging the chips into the furnace for melting, a series of cleaning processes has to be used in order to achieve good

quality products.

The article presents research on solid particle erosive wear resistance of ductile cast iron after laser surface melting. This surface treatment technology enables improvement of wear resistance of ductile cast iron surface. For the test ductile cast iron EN GJS-350-22 surface was processed by high power diode laser HPDL Rofin Sinar DL020. For the research single pass and multi pass laser melted surface layers were made. The macrostructure and microstructure of multi pass surface layers were analysed. The Vickers microhardness tests were proceeded for single pass and multi pass surface layers. The solid particle erosive test according to standard ASTM G76 – 04 with 30°, 60° and 90° impact angle was made for each multi pass surface layer. As a reference material in erosive test, base material EN GJS-350-22 was used. After the erosive test, worn surfaces observations were carried out on the Scanning Electron Microscope. Laser surface melting process of tested ductile cast iron resulted in maximum 3.7 times hardness increase caused by microstructure change. This caused the increase of erosive resistance in comparison to the base material.

The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility of obtaining an amorphous/crystalline composite starting from Ni-Si- B-based powder grade 1559-40 and silver powder. The alloy was produced using arc melting of 95% wt. Ni-Si-B-based powder (1559-40) and 5% wt. Ag powder. Ingot was re-melted on a copper plate and observed while cooling using a mid-wave infra-red camera. The alloy was then melt-spun in a helium atmosphere. The microstructure of the ingot as well as the melt-spun ribbon was studied using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry. Phase identification was performed by means of X-ray diffraction. The observations confirmed an amorphous/crystalline microstructure of the ribbon where the predominant constituent of the microstructure was an amorphous phase enriched with Ni, Si, and B, while the minor constituent was an Ag-rich crystalline phase distributed in a film along the melt-spinning direction.

Production waste is one of the major sources of aluminium for recycling. Depending on the waste sources, it can be directly melted in furnaces, pre-cleaned and then melted, or due to the small size of the material (powder or dust) left without remelting. The latter form of waste includes chips formed during mechanical cutting (sawing) of aluminium and its alloys. In this study, this type of chips (with the dimensions not exceeding 1 mm) were melted. The obtained results of laboratory tests have indicated that even chips of such small sizes pressed into cylindrical compacts can be remelted. The high recovery yield (up to 94 %) and degree of metal coalescence (up to 100 %) were achieved via thermal removal of impurities under controlled conditions of a gas atmosphere (argon or/and air), followed with consolidation of chips at a pressure of minimum 170 MPa and melting at 750 oC with NaCl-KCl-Na3AlF6 salt flux.

Recyclability is one of the great features of aluminium and its alloys. However, it has been typically considered that the secondary aluminium quality is low and bad. This is only because aluminium is so sensitive to turbulence. Uncontrolled transfer and handling of the liquid aluminium results in formation of double oxide defects known as bifilms. Bifilms are detrimental defects. They form porosity and deteriorate the properties. The detection and quantification of bifilms in liquid aluminium can be carried out by bifilm index measured in millimetres as an indication of melt cleanliness using Reduced Pressure Test (RPT). In this work, recycling efficiency and quality change of A356 alloy with various Ti additions have been investigated. The charge was recycled three times and change in bifilm index and bifilm number was evaluated. It was found that when high amount of Ti grain refiner was added, the melt quality was increased due to sedimentation of bifilms with Ti. When low amount of Ti is added, the melt quality was degraded.

The removal of inclusions is a major challenge prior to the casting process, as they cause a discontinuity in the cast material, thereby lowering its mechanical properties and have a negative impact on the feeding capability and fluidity of the liquid alloys. In order to achieve adequate melt quality for casting, it is important to clean the melts from inclusions, for which there are numerous methods that can be used. In the course of the presented research, the inclusion removal efficiency of rotary degassing coupled with the addition of different fluxes was investigated. The effects of various cleaning fluxes on the inclusion content and the susceptibility to pore formation were compared by the investigation of K-mold samples and the evaluation of Density Index values at different stages of melt preparation. The chemical composition of the applied fluxes was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, while the melting temperature of the fluxes was evaluated by derivatographic measurements. It was found that only the solute hydrogen content of the liquid metal could be significantly reduced during the melt treatments, however, better inclusion removal efficiency could be achieved with fluxes that have a low melting temperature.

The high pressure die casting technology allows the production of complex casts with good mechanical properties, with high production repeatability within narrow tolerance limits. However, the casts are somewhat porous, which may reduce their mechanical properties. There are several recommendations for reducing the porosity of casts, which are aimed at setting the technological parameters of the casting cycle. One of the primary and important ways to reduce the porosity and air entrapment in the melt is a suitable gating system design. Submitted contribution is devoted to assessing the influence of the runner branching geometry on the air entrapment within the cast volume during the filling phase of the casting cycle. Four variants of the gating system for a particular cast are compared with different design of main runner branching. The initial design is based on a real gating system where the secondary runner is connected to the main runner at an angle of 90 °. The modified designs are provided with a continuous transition of the main runner into the secondary ones, with the change in the branching runner radius r1 = 15 mm, r2 = 25 mm and r3 = 35 mm. The air entrapment in the melt is assessed within the cast volume behind the cores, which have been evaluated as a critical points with respect to further mechanical treatment. When designing the structural modification of geometry it was assumed that by branch changing using the radius value r3 = 35 mm, the melt flows fluently, and thus the value of the entrapped air in the volume of the cast will be the lowest. This assumption was disproved. The lowest values of entrapped air in the melt were found in the casts with runner transition designed with radius r1 = 15 mm. The conclusion of the contribution explains the causes of this phenomenon and from a designing point of view it presents proposal for measures to reduce the entrapment of the air in casts.