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Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the most adopted additive manufacturing techniques to produce prototypes and/or final parts regardless of geometrical complexity restrictions. One of the most challenging aspects of this technology is the attainable roughness. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the capability of the slurry impacts to improve the surface roughness of parts fabricated using FDM. Moreover, a regression model for predicting the values of surface roughness was developed.

The developed technique imposes a silica–water mixture which softens the staircase on the surface and leaves it smoother. The process introduces three main factors: building orientation; layer thickness; and impact angle of the slurry particles. Experimentally, a test rig was used to evaluate the effect of these factors on surface roughness. Statistically, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis were conducted to study the contribution of the individual factors on the roughness.

The results reveal that the effect of slurry impacts has a good impact on surface roughness, and the three factors have significant effect on surface roughness.

This paper contributes to new knowledge by providing a new technique for enhancing the surface roughness of FDMed products. ANOVA and regression analysis is a useful tool to parametrically study the surface roughness in terms of building and testing factors.

The ability to produce a uniform composition, high corrosion resistance with a hard coating layer during the electroless coating techniques are mainly based on the plating bath composition. The complexing agent is one of the most important components that control the coating layer properties. This paper aims to investigate the effect of the glycine as a complex agent on the surface and corrosion properties of Ni-P and Ni-P/Al₂O₃ electroless coating.

In this study, the effect of glycine as a complexing agent on the final surface and corrosion properties of the Ni-P and Ni-P/Al₂O₃ coatings has been investigated. The surface morphology and composition of the coated samples were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. Linear polarization scan and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques were used to investigate the corrosion properties of the coating layer.

The results clarify that, glycine has a remarkable effect on the porosity content of Ni-P and Ni-P/Al₂O₃. It was found that increasing of glycine concentration results in higher porosity content in the coating layers. Also, the porosity in the coating layers minimizes the protectability of the coating against corrosion. The results also show that adding nano-alumina (Al₂O₃) to the coating path has improved the corrosion properties by decreasing the porosity in the coating layer. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showed that the concentration of glycine affects the content and distribution of alumina nanoparticles embedded in the coating layer. Also, it was observed that using a high concentration of glycine (0.4 M glycine), the alumina tends to agglomerate and the final alumina content in the coating was decreased.

The present study reveals that the quality of the final coating plays a major role in the corrosion performance of the steel substrate. The coating quality can by improve remarkably by optimization of the complexing agent used in the plating bath, to minimize the porosity involve in the coating layer.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between the slurry erosion and one of the case hardening treatments, i.e. boronizing in this study, for AISI-5117 steel alloy. AISI-5117 steel alloy was used because of its variety applications in the field of submarine equipment. Most of the slurry erosion factors such as velocity, impact angle and mechanism of erosion were studied at different impact angles.

At first, the samples were prepared and subjected to the boronizing treatment in controlled atmosphere. By using a slurry erosion test-rig, all experiments for studying the slurry erosion factors were carried out. Moreover, the studied specimens were investigated via scanning electron microscope, optical microscope and X-ray diffraction to study the erosion mechanism in the different conditions.

It was expected that the boronization of the AISI-5117 steel would increase its slurry erosion resistance due to its positive impact on the surface hardness. However, the results observed show the opposite, where the boronization of AISI-5117 steel decreased its slurry erosion resistance as implied by the increase of the mass loss percentage at all impact angles.

This research, for the first time, exhibits the effect of boronizing treatment on the slurry erosion in different impact factors accompanied by the erosion mechanism at each impact angle.

The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the positive influence of human resource management practices (HRMPs) on job satisfaction (JS) and affective commitment (AC).

Data were collected through a self-administrated questionnaire disseminated in 19 resort hotels in Egypt’s Red Sea region. The structural equation modeling results indicate that HRMPs significantly affect JS and AC through mediation effects.

This study highlights the importance of a hotel’s behavior in fulfilling its HRMPs obligations on employee attitudes and behaviors. Effective HRMPs (i.e. recruitment and selection, training and socialization and security) positively influence employee outcomes like JS and AC. JS has a significantly positive relationship with AC and a mediating effect on the link between HRMPs and AC.

These results cannot be generalized to the overall Egyptian hospitality sector context. The survey data are self-reported, so future research should investigate hotel managers and guests through interviews or focus groups.

Effective HRMPs should increase JS and AC. human resource managers should emphasize the critical role of HRMPs in enhancing JS and AC and motivating hotel employees to remain with their hotels. They should also develop a robust framework to improve JS and AC with HRMPs effectively. This study provides a conceptual model for researchers in the HRM literature.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically investigate the impact of HRMPs on JS and AC in the Red Sea region, with significant academic and practical implications. This research is unique in presenting a conceptual model exposing the AC of organizational commitment.