The research will fill the increasing demand of sustainable composite materials by designing and characterizing an epoxy based biocomposite that is reinforced with natural fibers that are derived through the Cynara scolumus (artichoke stem) agricultural waste. The study methodically examines how fiber reinforcement influences the performance of the composite under a controlled extraction of the fibers, and also the unidirectional laminates of the composite were produced with single, double, and triple ply. The fibers were methodologically described in physical properties with the help of water absorption kinetics based on the Peleg equation, and mechanical performance with tensile tests and impact tests according to the ASTM standards, including SEM and EDX tests. The most important findings include the fact that the mechanical properties are greatly increased with the number of fiber plies: single-ply composite reached the ultimate tensile strength of about 15 MPa, double-ply composite tensile strength was 32 MPa, and the triple-ply composite tensile strength was 60 MPa with better strain at break (about 2.2%). The resistance to impact also improved with the number of ply and the adhesion of fibers to the matrix was also confirmed by SEM with a small number of voids and EDX gave a fiber composition of 56.49% carbon and 34.05% oxygen. The paper presents the new application of the Cynara scolymus fibers, which are an untested agricultural waste, in epoxy composites, and is the first use of Weibull statistical analysis to describe the consistency and reliability of these fibers as a sustainable reinforcement. The paper concludes that Cynara scolymus fibers are an effective, renewable reinforcement, with a very good balance of low density, better specific strength, and acceptable moisture uptake, thus contributing to the valorization of agricultural residues to support the eco-friendly structural and semi-structural composites.

Nanotechnology plays a vital role in heat transport due to its wide range of applications, significantly contributing to fields such as bioengineering, space exploration, biosensor research, semiconductor technology, and advanced electronics. The primary objective of this analysis is to examine the Casson fluid model for heat and mass transport between stretchy rotating disks, incorporating copper and titanium oxide nanoparticles into a sodium alginate base fluid. This analysis encompasses the effects of mixed convection, chemical reactions, convective conditions, activation energy, and thermal radiation. The bvp4c method is utilized to solve the resultant equations. Tables and Figures offer a clear depiction of the results. Understanding the thermal characteristics of hybrid fluids is crucial to energy systems, biological fluid dynamics, and engineering applications, where fluid flow and heat transfer are critical to system performance. At lower disk, the skin friction improved by 10.24% and 12.36% relative to the higher values of the magnetic and Cason parameters. The Schmidt number reduces mass-transfer gradients by 18.1%, whereas the activation energy decreases by 13.7%. The volume fractions of the selected nanoparticles vary from 0.02 to 0.04, and the heat transfer rates for the hybrid nanofluid increases 12% for the hybrid nanofluid as compared to the nanofluid. The hybrid nanofluid significantly affects flow distributions.

This study investigates the steady two-dimensional natural-convection flow and heat and mass transfer of a Cu–Al2O3/water thixotropic hybrid nanofluid over a vertically stretching sheet. The boundary-layer model incorporates magnetic effects, thermal radiation, heat generation, viscous dissipation, Joule heating, melting, chemical reaction, species diffusion, and motile microorganisms. By applying suitable similarity transformations, the governing partial differential equations are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations and solved numerically using MATLAB bvp4c. The results show that the magnetic field suppresses the velocity profile, whereas melting enhances it. Temperature increases with the heat source parameter but decreases with radiation and melting, while nanoparticle concentration declines with higher Schmidt number and chemical reaction. In addition, microorganism concentration decreases with the bioconvection Lewis number and increases with the Peclet number and microorganism concentration difference parameter.