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Al‐alumina interconnected phase composites were processed using the direct fused deposition process. These materials with tailored microstructures can find applications as structural materials with gradient properties.

In this process, feedstock material with fused silica as a starting material was compounded at a high shear mixer and then extruded as a filament using a single screw extruder. Extruded filaments were used with a commercial fused deposition modeler, FDM 1650, to process controlled porosity green ceramic structures. Porous green ceramic preforms were subjected to binder removal and sintering cycles in furnace air. Controlled porosity sintered ceramic structures were infiltrated with Al 5052 metal by pressureless reactive metal infiltration to form an in situ Al‐alumina structured composite.

The main advantage for this approach is to control distribution of both metal and ceramic phases in the composite. During metal infiltration good bonding was observed between the metal and the ceramic phases. Composites were tested under both quasi‐static and dynamic shock loading to evaluate their mechanical properties. Compression strength of these composites was 689±95 MPa.

This paper describes application of the direct fused deposition process for fabrication of ceramic/metal composites where both macrostructure as well as microstructure can be controlled simultaneously. The paper also focuses on one of the potential application area for 5052‐Al alloy.

The lack of proper dissemination of market information is observed as the main reason of poor marketing of the agricultural produce in India. Application of information and communication technology (ICT) can bridge this information gap by means of dissemination of required marketing information specifically targeted at the farmers. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of ICT on marketing of rice in Uttar Pradesh, one of the biggest northern states of India.

As rice is the dominant crop of Uttar Pradesh, the impact of ICT on net price received (NP_f) by rice producers of the state is studied. An attempt is also made to identify the factors that influence the use of ICT. Primary data are collected through a multistage sampling technique. Single, multiple dummy and binary logistic regression models are used in the present work.

A significant difference is observed in the NP_f of the farmers using ICT than that of non-users. Education and land holding type also have a positive and significant impact on ICT use.

In the existing literature, the study related to the impact of ICT on agricultural marketing is almost absent for India in general, and Uttar Pradesh in particular. ICT has created impact in almost all directions of life. It is expected that the implementation of ICT will create a notable impact on the income level of the farmers. The present study will give a direction in this regard. The study is based on primary data and original work of the authors.

This paper aims to numerically examine the mixed convection of SiO₂-water nanofluid flow in a three-dimensional (3D) cubic cavity with a conductive partition considering various shapes of the particles (spherical, cylindrical, blade, brick). The purpose is to analyze the effects of various pertinent parameters such as Richardson number (between 0.1 and 10), Hartmann number (between 0 and 10), solid nanoparticle volume fraction (between 0 and 0.04), particle shape (spherical, cylindrical, blade, brick) and different heights and lengths of the conductive partition on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics.

The numerical simulation was performed by using Galerkin-weighted residual finite element method for various values of Richardson number, Hartmann number, solid nanoparticle volume fraction, particle shape (spherical, cylindrical, blade, brick) and different heights and lengths of the conductive partition. Two models for the average Nusselt number were proposed for nanofluids with spherical and cylindrical particle by using multi-layer feed-forward neural networks.

It was observed that the average Nusselt number reduces for higher values of Richardson number and Hartmann number, while enhances for higher values of nanoparticle volume fraction. Among various types of particle shapes, blade ones perform the worst and cylindrical ones perform the best in terms of heat transfer enhancement, but this is not significant which is less than 3 per cent. The average Nusselt number deteriorates by about 6.53per cent for nanofluid at the highest volume fraction of spherical particle shapes, but it is 11.75per cent for the base fluid when Hartmann number is increased from 0 to 10. Conductive partition geometrical parameters (length and height) do not contribute to much to heat transfer process for the 3D cavity, except for the case when height of the partition reaches 0.8 times the height of the cubic cavity, the average Nusselt number value reduces by about 25per cent both for base fluid and for nanofluid when compared to case with cavity height which is 0.2 times the height of the cubic cavity.

Based on the literature survey, a 3D configuration for MHD mixed convection of nanofluid flow in a cavity with a conductive partition considering the effects of various particle shapes has never been studied in the literature. This study is a first attempt to use a conductive partition with nanofluid of various particle shapes to affect the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in a 3D cubic cavity under the influence of magnetic field. Partial or all findings of this study could be used for the design and optimization of realistic 3D thermal configurations that are encountered in practice and some of the applications were already mentioned above. In this study, thermal performance of the system was obtained in terms of average heat transfer coefficient along the hot surface, and it is modeled with multi-layer feed-forward neural networks.

This study aims to numerically examine mixed convection of CuO-water nanofluid in a three-dimensional (3D) vented cavity with inlet and outlet ports under the influence of an inner rotating circular cylinder, homogeneous magnetic field and surface corrugation effects. In practical applications, it is possible to encounter some of the considered configurations in a vented cavity such as magnetic field, rotating cylinder and it is also possible to specially add some of the active and passive control means to control the convection inside the cavity such as adding nanoparticles, corrugating the surfaces. The complicated physics with nanofluid under the effects of magnetic field and inclusion of complex 3D geometry make it possible to use the results of this numerical investigation for the design, control and optimization of many thermal engineering systems as mentioned above.

The bottom surface is corrugated with a rectangular wave shape, and the rotating cylinder surface and cavity bottom surface were kept at constant hot temperatures while the cold fluid enters the inlet port with uniform velocity. The complicated interaction between the forced convection and buoyancy-driven convection coupled with corrugated and rotating surfaces in 3D configuration with magnetic field, which covers a wide range of thermal engineering applications, are numerically simulated with finite element method. Effects of various pertinent parameters such as Richardson number (between 0.01 and 100), Hartmann number (between 0 and 1,000), angular rotational speed of the cylinder (between −30 and 30), solid nanoparticle volume fraction (between 0 and 0.04), corrugation height (between 0 and 0.18H) and number (between 1 and 20) on the convective heat transfer performance are numerically analyzed.

It was observed that the magnetic field suppresses the recirculation zone obtained in the lower part of the inlet port and enhances the average heat transfer rate, which is 10.77 per cent for water and 6.86 per cent for nanofluid at the highest strength. Due to the thermal and electrical conductivity enhancement of nanofluid, there is 5 per cent discrepancy in the Nusselt number augmentation with the nanoadditive inclusion in the absence and presence of magnetic field. The average heat transfer rate of the corrugated surface enhances by about 9.5 per cent for counter-clockwise rotation at angular rotational speed of 30 rad/s as compared to motionless cylinder case. Convective heat transfer characteristics are influenced by introducing the corrugation waves. As compared to number of waves, the height of the corrugation has a slight effect on the heat transfer variation. When the number of rectangular waves increases from N = 1 to N = 20, approximately 59 per cent of the average heat transfer reduction is achieved.

In this study, mixed convection of CuO-water nanofluid in a 3D vented cavity with inlet and outlet ports is numerically examined under the influence of an inner rotating circular cylinder, homogeneous magnetic field and surface corrugation effects. To the best of authors knowledge such a study has never been performed. In practical applications, it is possible to encounter some of the considered configurations in a vented cavity such as magnetic field, rotating cylinder and it is also possible to specially add some of the active and passive control means to control the convection inside the cavity such as adding nanoparticles, corrugating the surfaces. The complicated physics with nanofluid under the effects of magnetic field and inclusion of complex 3D geometry make it possible to use the results of this numerical investigation for the design, control and optimization of many thermal engineering systems as mentioned above.

Present investigation conducts a study on the hydrothermal features of a double flow Parabolic Trough Solar Collector (PTSC) equipped with sinusoidal-wavy grooved absorber tube and twisted tape insert filled with nanofluid. This paper aims to present an effectual PTSC which is comprised by nanofluid numerically by means of finite volume method.

The beneficial results such as pressure drop inside the absorber tube, mean predicted friction factor, predicted average Nusselt number and hydrothermal Performance Evaluation Criteria (PEC) are evaluated and reported to present the influences of numerous factors on studied interest outcomes. Effects of different Reynolds numbers and environmental conditions are also determined in this investigation.

It is found that using the absorber roof (canopy) can enhance the heat transfer ratio of PTSCs significantly during all studied Reynolds numbers. Also, it is realized that the combination of inner grooved surface, outer corrugated surface and inserting turbulator can improve the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of PTSCs sharply.

Novel PTSC (N.PTSC) filling with two Heat Transfer Fluids (HTFs), inner and outer surface corrugated absorber tube, absorber roof and inserting twisted tape (N.PTSC.f) has the highest PEC values among all novel configurations along all investigated Reynolds numbers which is followed by configurations N.PTSC with two HTFs and inserting twisted tape (N.PTSC.e), N.PTSC with two HTFs and outer surface corrugated absorber tube (N.PTSC.b) and N.PTSC with two HTFs and inner surface corrugated absorber tube (N.PTSC.c), respectively. N.PTSC.f Nusselt number values can overcome the high values of friction factor, and therefore is introduced as the most efficient model in the current study.

The purpose of this paper is to recommend a validated numerical model for simulation the flue gases heat recovery recuperators. Due to fulfill of this demand, the influences of ash fouling characteristics during the transient/steady-state simulation and optimization of a 3D complex heat exchanger equipped with inner plain fins and side plate fins are studied.

For the particle dispersion modeling, the discrete phase model is applied and the flow field has been solved using SIMPLE algorithm.

According to obtained results, for the recuperator equipped with combine inner plain and side plate fins, determination of ash fouling characteristics is really important, effective and determinative. It is clear that by underestimating the ash fouling characteristics, the achieved results are wrong and different with reality.

Finally, the configuration with inner plain fins with characteristics of: d_i =5 mm, d_o = 6 mm, d_g = 2 mm, d_k = 3 mm and NIPFT = 9 and side plate fins with characteristics of: T_F = 3 mm, P_F = 19 mm, NSPF = 17·2 = 34, W_F = 10 mm, H_F = 25 mm, L_F = 24 mm and ß = 0° is introduced as the optimum model with the best performance among all studied configurations.