This work discusses the design and demonstration of an in-situ test setup for testing pipeline steels in a high pressure gaseous hydrogen (H2) environment. A miniature hollow pipe-like tensile specimen was designed that acts as the gas containment volume during the test. Specific areas of the specimen can be forced to fracture by selective notching, as performed on the weldment. The volume of H2 used was minimised so the test can be performed safely without the need of specialised equipment. The setup is shown to be capable of characterising Hydrogen Embrittlement (HE) in steels through testing an X60 pipeline steel and its weldment. The percentage elongation (%El) of the base metal was found to be reduced by 40% when tested in 100 barg H2. Reduction of cross-sectional area (%RA) was found to decrease by 28% and 11% in the base metal and weld metal, respectively, when tested in 100 barg H2. Benchmark test were performed at 100 barg N2 pressure. SEM fractography further indicated a shift from normal ductile fracture mechanisms to a brittle transgranular (TG) quasi-cleavage (QC) type fracture that is characteristic of HE.@en

The most critical concern with respect to the development of driverless vehicle technology is its safety and reliability. Inadequate technological advancements may lead to serious implications especially in terms of loss of human life. Moreover, technological advancements bring socio-technical complexities where the role of human, being the key element of a system, becomes highly important. Benefits of advanced technologies in driverless vehicles cannot be realized properly if safety related concerns have not been appropriately addressed in the design process. One possible way forward is to get feedback from the users of technology and incorporate design requirements accordingly. For acquiring the necessary information on various safety related issues that might be faced by the drivers, this public opinion based survey study has been conducted in China and Pakistan which mainly aims at capturing the public reliance level, perceptions and expectations on driverless vehicle system, more specifically on safety related issues. A web-based survey, containing some general questions about safety especially under some given driving scenarios, was launched in both the countries. The survey findings provide a useful insight for stakeholders towards user’s expectations, their safety perceptions and differences in the level of trust on modern vehicle technologies between the people of an emerging economy (China) and low-income country (Pakistan). The results also direct towards the need for further exploration of safety related concerns so that the issues could be addressed pragmatically during the design process.@en

Modulated surface-textured substrates for thin-film silicon solar cells exhibiting high haze in a broad range of wavelengths were fabricated. Glass substrates coated with different thicknesses of a sacrificial layer were wet-etched allowing the manipulation of the surface morphology with surface roughness ranging from 200 nm up to 1000 nm. Subsequently, zinc-oxide layers were sputtered and then wet-etched constituting the final modulated textures. The morphological analysis of the substrates demonstrated the surface modulation, and the optical analysis revealed broad angle intensity distributions and high hazes. A small anti-reflective effect with respect to untreated glass was found for etched glass samples. The performance of solar cells on high-haze substrates was evaluated. The solar cells outperformed the reference cell fabricated on a randomly-textured zinc-oxide-coated flat glass. The trend in the efficiency resembled the increased surface roughness and the anti-reflective effect was confirmed also in solar cell devices.@en