Plasma cutting is an ever-evolving method of industrial cutting of materials. Like all modern methods, it must meet the requirements for the quality of the cut, but also the hygiene and safety regulations set by European legislation. New ways are being sought to reduce process noise while improving the quality of the cutting surface. The article aims to compare two cutting modes (Contour Cut and Silent Cut) in terms of both the quality of the cut (roughness of the cutting surface, size of the heat affected area, perpendicularity and bevel angle of the cutting surface) and in terms of noise of the cutting process. The results in the article clearly show that the use of the Silent Cut mode has a demonstrably positive effect on the level of noise produced but also on the quality of the cut.

This article deals with optimization of operational parameters of an energy regeneration module for a heavy vehicle. Recently, there was developed an energy regeneration module for a pneumatic tyred roller with hydrostatic drive. It was necessary to optimize its operational parameters to achieve good results in experimental tests on the actual vehicle. The optimization process was based on a numerical model of the vehicle using a parallelized modification of the differential evolution algorithm as an optimizer. Suggested parameter values were subsequently verified experimentally on the vehicle by analysis of the fuel consumption.