Naveed ur Rehman

Naveed ur Rehman
Southern Institute of Technology · Faculty of Engineering

PhD (Solar Energy Engineering), M.Engg (Energy Systems), B.Engg (Mechanical Engineering)
Looking for Collaborative and Funding Opportunities in Solar Energy, Sustainability, Urban Design, and Environment.

About

60
Publications
44,381
Reads
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402
Citations
Introduction
I actively research solar energy engineering systems, incorporating design, analysis, optimization, thermodynamics, heat transfer, optics, and simulation. I am currently a full-time mechanical engineering lecturer at the Southern Institute of Technology, Invercargill (New Zealand). I have published numerous articles in prestigious journals and have presented at many conferences. Please get in touch if you want to collaborate or have something interesting to share :)
Education
August 2016 - April 2021
Auckland University of Technology
Field of study
  • Solar Energy Engineering (Mechanical)

Publications

Publications (60)
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents an innovative methodology for determining sky blocking by obstacles, when viewed virtually from any location on a site. These sky blockings are defined in the form of azimuth and altitude angles (or position angles) of exposed corners of obstacles around locations, proposed for solar installations at the site. To determine sky b...
Article
Full-text available
This paper proposes a novel design for a solar concentrated collector for thermoelectric power generator (SCTEG), with optimum power output per unit length of collector. This collector consists of a parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) and a receiver mounted with two thermoelectric generators (TEGs) along the aperture of the concentrator. In additio...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, an optical-irradiance model is developed for analyzing the performance of a façade integrated solar collector. The collector is constructed in a reflector-on-top configuration with a finite, flat booster reflector and a receiver. The model can subsequently be used for optimizing the collector geometry, also demonstrated in this work....
Article
Full-text available
This paper describes an optical-irradiance model devised to analyze the performance and geometrical optimization of a single slope solar still. The three-dimensional backward ray-tracing technique, along with Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) was used to statistically generate the sampled incoming rays. Validation was conducted in four geometrical sce...
Article
Full-text available
This study was performed to optimize the single slope solar still with internally reflecting walls and externally reflecting, top and bottom, flat booster reflectors using an optical irradiance model. The model uses a 3‑D hybrid recursive ray tracing method developed in this study. The model was validated in a couple of geometrical scenarios. To me...
Article
Full-text available
In a parabolic trough collector (PTC), the geometric concentration ratio (Cg), which is the ratio of the aperture width of the concentrator and the width of the receiver, is generally used for evaluating the solar radiation collected by the flat receiver. This paper argues that this approach is valid only up to a certain width of receiver and that...
Presentation
Full-text available
Launching a self-sustainable website/mobile application that involves little to no involvement during operations is currently achievable. Such a product can be a great way to earn ongoing passive income. However, thinking of an appropriate product idea is always difficult, especially when an unorganized approach is adopted. Therefore, this study de...
Presentation
Full-text available
For more than a century, “Parabolic” solar concentrators have remained the center of many types of research and development relating to high concentration solar energy engineering applications. However, recent studies are arguing about their deployment in concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems. The main reason is the unhomogenized flux distributi...
Presentation
Full-text available
The traditional approach to assessing students’ engineering design skills is based on a single loop, in which students are taught to become efficient in solving a design problem when all the necessary input variables are given, and the results are pre-determined. However, this does not contribute to sustainable learning. Perhaps the double and trip...
Article
Full-text available
Prefabrication and offsite construction help in attaining affordable and sustainable housing with less time compared to the traditional on-site construction approaches. This study provides a guide to develop a Building Information Model (BIM) and perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of prefabricated house buildings (PHB) when the Building Integrat...
Article
Full-text available
To optimize the output of parabolic receiver-dish systems, a proper selection and designing of receiver is essential. The performance of the system greatly depend on convective heat losses In this study, the experimentally validated numerical study is performed on different commonly used receivers(Conical, cylindrical and rectangular shapes with an...
Article
Full-text available
This work proposes a method for removing the inconsistency between the numerical models used for determining the sky view factor (SVF) in an urban environment and fundamental radiation heat transfer theory. For this purpose, a transformation of the coordinate system from global to surface was developed, which corrected the measurement of the angula...
Article
This paper presents a methodology for performing sensitivity analysis on the capital and energy production costs of off-grid Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. The different influencing parameters that are considered in this study are the daily electric load on the system, available sunshine hours, per unit costs of components, mainte...
Article
Full-text available
The world faces a series of severe energy and environmental challenges including depletion of fossil fuel reserves, and climate change. These problems are affecting societies directly or indirectly across the world. Solar energy is one of the promising renewable energy resources. However, the availability of sun energy is greatly influenced by the...
Article
Full-text available
From the use of a pinhole camera placed under a water tank, which was proposed almost 100 years ago, to the application of modern digital cameras mounted with sophisticated fisheye lenses, acquisition methods for capturing hemispherical photographs undergone vigorous research and development. Over the past few decades, such photographs have been ex...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Presentation: https://apvi.org.au/solar-research-conference/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Horasia-C-Presentation-Sustainable-Cryptocurrency-Mining.pdf
Article
For solar concentrating photovoltaic applications, line-focusing collectors, such as parabolic trough collectors, can accommodate greater numbers of PV cells at their focus compared to point focusing collectors. However, there is a dearth of research related to homogenizing the flux distribution in such collectors. Therefore, this paper aimed to de...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a numerical method for determining the effects of the tilt and orientation (or azimuth) angles of solar conversion devices (such as photovoltaic panels and flat-plate collectors). It requires the geographic location (latitude) and the monthly average daily global radiation data of the site as inputs. Then, these data are transfo...
Article
This study developed a methodology for determining the intercept factor (γ) and reports the effects of varying the design parameters, within realistic ranges, on the optical performance of parabolic trough collectors (PTC). The design equations account for the aperture width of the concentrator, the geometric concentration ratio, rim-angle and misa...
Presentation
Full-text available
Cryptocurrency mining refers to a process in which people earn monetary rewards against their invested computational resources for solving complex mathematical puzzles. These returns are directly proportional to the computing speed of the mining hardware, and thus its electric power requirements. Increasing commercial interest in cryptocurrency min...
Presentation
Full-text available
In major New Zealand cities, food crops (fruits and vegetables) often travel great distances from farm fields to the dinner table. Considering the growing urban population, these “food miles” raise sustainability-related issues, such as fossil fuel consumption and its effects on the environment. Growing food crops inside (or near) urban centers see...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a model for assessing the financial viability of cryptocurrency mining setups powered by off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The model considers the features of mining hardware, the network attributes, the price of virtual currency and the solar potential of the installation site, to predict the payback period of the inves...
Article
In this paper, the energy collection performance of north/south- and east-west-facing collector pairs, installed at optimized fixed and seasonally adjusted tilt angles, considering both portrait and landscape alignments, and setups with and without reflectors, were numerically compared with each other. For the purpose, a method based on hybrid ray-...
Article
Full-text available
This paper outlines a method for determining the maximum number of floors of a vertical farm that can be powered by building-integrated solar photovoltaic panels for supplying artificial lighting to the plants. The panels are mounted on all the walls and the rooftop of the building. It takes into account the location of the site, the monthly averag...
Thesis
Full-text available
In modern city centres, which are comprised of tall buildings with limited rooftop space, installing solar energy technologies on the facades can effectively respond to the current barriers to their deployment on rooftops. However, since there is a dearth of efficient façade solar potential assessment models, feasibility analysis of such projects w...
Article
Full-text available
Engineering professionals employed in the civil, mechanical and electrical sectors are less likely to be involved in entrepreneurship as a career path, mainly due to lack of formal education in this area. This paper investigates the current trends in freelancing in engineering disciplines. Data relating to projects posted in popular freelancing mar...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a method for evaluating the intercept factor (γ) of a beam-down parabolic trough collector (BDPTC), accounting for collector design, solar cone and shading on the aperture due to secondary reflectors. A numerical ray-tracing technique was developed and used for the purpose. Validation was performed by comparing the results with...
Presentation
Full-text available
COVID19 has enhanced reliance on e-learning. Key constraints still prevail for conducting practical lab sessions in most engineering courses in these circumstances. The concept of virtual labs has been investigated to establish a digital learning platform to simulate actual lab work. A computer simulation-based virtual lab, embedded with state-of-t...
Article
This paper presents a methodology for the optical design of a novel solar concentrating photovoltaic trough collector, consisting of several flat reflecting segments, joined together in an open polygonal shape. The concentrator reflects the incident solar radiation to a flat receiver, thus forming a photovoltaic module. The system of analytical des...
Presentation
Full-text available
Several towns and cities in New Zealand are at high risk of running out of drinking water. Desalinating seawater at a domestic scale seems to be a viable solution, at least for coastal towns. Single slope solar stills can be used for this purpose. These devices are simple and cheap to manufacture, operate and maintain. Although these solar stills w...
Presentation
Full-text available
Aim/question The prime aim of this paper is to study the freelancing market for engineering and identify the essential skills required by engineers to become work-ready in the pandemic-like situation, based on completed engineering projects posted in the last ten years a global scale. Research design/methodology This study conducts a scientomet...
Article
Full-text available
The existing models for analyzing internally reflecting solar stills with external boosters are based on simple geometric relationships and are therefore not adequate for simulating and optimizing more complex arrangements. Therefore, this study presents a 3D hybrid ray-tracing-based model for designing and optimizing such stills. To validate the m...
Article
Full-text available
A method for optimizing the geometrical layout for a façade-mounted solar photovoltaic array is presented. Unlike conventional studies, this work takes into account the finite height of the façade, which is more realistic. The proposed analytical relationships and optimization routine evaluate the best tilt angle and the number of panels such that...
Article
Full-text available
In a parabolic trough collector (PTC), the varying solar flux distribution at the receiver's surface causes high temperature gradients, which are harmful to the material. The existing studies have used only a visual approach to depict the homogenization of solar flux, which is subjective rather than quantitative. This paper presents a method for qu...
Article
Full-text available
The number of rows of photovoltaic (PV) modules in a field are limited by the area available for installation. With the objective of achieving maximum solar energy collection by the modules, determining the geometric layout becomes an optimization problem that couples the tilt angle and inter-row spacing. The existing optimization methods are simpl...
Article
Full-text available
Current work investigates a method for evaluating the solar potential of public bus routes for solar electric buses. As access of solar radiation to roads is generally hindered by natural and man-made structures in the surroundings, the methodology involved taking several fisheye images along the chosen bus route. The visible sky and the structures...
Article
Full-text available
Existing studies are focused on maximizing the solar energy collection by photovoltaic modules installed on a flat (horizontal) field. This paper presents an analytical model, which considers the tilt angle of the field along with the modules and evaluates the direct solar energy accumulation within a given time period. Validation of the model is p...
Presentation
Full-text available
A methodology for evaluating the solar potential of public bus routes is presented in this paper. As access to solar radiation on roads is generally hindered by natural and man-made structures in the surroundings, the methodology mainly involved taking large numbers of fisheye images along the chosen bus route. The visible sky and the structures we...
Article
Full-text available
This study presents a methodology for assessing the potential solar resource available at solar-powered parking machines installed in a typical city center. It is based on capturing fisheye images through an appropriate camera/lens. These images are then processed to classify the sky and non-sky pixels using a semi-automated sky detection method, a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents an advance in a method to evaluate the diffuse solar potential on facades in the urban environment. The proposed method is suitable to work in both the isotropic and anisotropic sky conditions. It employs the 2.5D geo-information model, combined with the forward ray-tracing technique that has been found efficient in urban analys...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, a heat transfer-based performance model of a flat-panel solar thermoelectric generator (SFPTEG) is developed. This model essentially encompasses the thermal parasitic losses that are inherent in commercially available thermoelectric generator (TEG) modules. The model is capable of predicting yields from SFPTEG systems in both open (n...
Article
Full-text available
This paper reports numerical investigations of turbulent flow field and heat transfer performance of water-alumina nanofluid jet impingement. The jet impinges over a flat, circular heated surface from a circular pipe of diameter D_jt. The influence of jet Reynolds number (1200 ≤ 〖Re〗_jt ≤ 40,000), jet-outlet-to-target wall distance (2 ≤ H/D_jt ≤ 12...
Article
Full-text available
This work presents numerically derived regression models for evaluating the thermal efficiency and fluid exit temperature of a solar flat-plate collector (FPC), when water, 20% glycol–water or 40% glycol–water is used as the heat transfer fluid. A set of reliable samples of all the contributing parameters, chosen from the presented analytical model...
Article
Full-text available
This work theoretically and experimentally investigated the performance of an arrayed solar flat-plate thermoelectric generator (ASFTEG). An analytical model, based on energy balances, was established for determining load voltage, power output and overall efficiency of ASFTEGs. An array consists of TEG devices (or modules) connected electrically in...
Article
Full-text available
The detailed and precise estimation of solar energy is a major requirement for solar applications on building roof tops. These estimations help in sustainable development, energy policy making, and renewable energy consumption. In this paper, a methodology was devised to estimate the solar radiation components. This methodology is easily accessible...
Article
Full-text available
This paper demonstrates a probabilistic modelling approach for establishing the correlation of Heat transfer fluid (HTF) temperature, obtained at the exit of a linear Parabolic trough collector (PTC). For the purpose, an analytical heat transfer (Physical) model was developed and validated by comparing its result with the published values. The corr...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
As urban environments become more complex and built-up there is reduced space on roofs for photovoltaic systems, meaning there is an opportunity to develop façade (wall) integrated photovoltaic systems. However, to facilitate this, there is a need to be able to quantify the solar radiation received by specific building facades. As such, this work e...
Article
Full-text available
The consistency of well-known analytical models used for determining the sky view factor (SVF) in comparison with the theoretical definition of SVF is quantified in this paper. A general formula for SVF is derived, which can be configured to use various methods of computing solar irradiance approaching from all directions in a hemispherical vault a...
Article
Full-text available
Technical and economic feasibility of heating feed water through parabolic trough solar collectors has been discussed in this paper. This integration of solar energy with steam plants saves extraction steam, thus increasing turbine output. The study is based on a 210 MW Heavy fuel oil (HFO) fired power plant for Karachi weather conditions. Pressuri...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, a regression model for evaluating the performance of solar concentrated thermoelectric generators (SCTEGs) is established and the significance of contributing parameters is discussed in detail. The model is based on several natural, design and operational parameters of the system, including the thermoelectric generator (TEG) module a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
An algorithm for estimating solar energy potential of facades in an urban context is proposed in this paper. The potential is presented in terms of the ratio of direct solar energy accumulated on facades when shadowing effects of nearby buildings are considered and to an ideal scenario when these shadowing effects are ignored. In achieving this, th...
Code
These codes are for the following publication: Naveed ur Rehman, Mubashir Ali Siddiqui, A novel methodology for determining sky blocking by obstacles viewed virtually from any location on site, Energy and Buildings, Volume 128, 15 September 2016, Pages 827-833, ISSN 0378-7788, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.07.050. (http://www.sciencedire...
Code
A user-friendly package to generate Latin-hypercube samples for research purposes, as desired. It supports Uniform (min/max), Uniform (by %), Normal, Exponential and Weibull distributions. It can be used in both the graphical user (GUI) and command line (CL) interfaces.
Article
Full-text available
A correlation for determining the critical concentration ratio (CCR) of solar concentrated thermoelectric generators (SCTEGs) has been established, and the significance of the contributing parameters is discussed in detail. For any SCTEG, higher concentration ratio leads to higher temperatures at the hot side of modules. However, the maximum value...
Book
Full-text available
The analytical modeling for the thermal and pressure drop analysis of a liquid cooling cold plate system has been performed. For this, a typical design problem is stated and then the model is developed and solved according to the specific requirements given in that problem statement. Results are compared and verified through computational fluid dyn...
Article
Full-text available
A novel method for computing sky view factor for isotropic diffuse radiations on tilted collectors located in obstacle free and urban sites has been introduced in this paper. The proposed method involves disintegrating the hemispherical sky vault around collector into small portions (sky elements). Collector is a flat receiving surface, positioned...
Conference Paper
The output of any photovoltaic or flat-plate collector system is limited by the amount of solar energy incident on it. Therefore, determining the intensity and availability of sunlight at the proposed site for any project is crucial for designing a proper system. For determining these factors, consultants and experts usually carry out detailed site...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The output of any photovoltaic or flat-plate collector system is limited by the amount of solar energy incident on it. Therefore, determining the intensity and availability of sunlight at the proposed site for any project is crucial for designing a proper system. For determining these factors, consultants and experts usually carry out detailed site...

Questions

Questions (11)
Question
Parabola is the most preferred shape in solar trough concentrators. Are there other shapes as well that can perform better or equalent to parabolic shape?
Question
Natural and man-made structures generally hinder the access of solar radiation to roads in the surroundings. This work investigates a method for evaluating the solar potential of public bus routes for solar electric buses.
#renewableenergy #solar #electricbuses #solarpower
Question
We've recently published a basic model for determining the feasibility of solar-powered cryptocurrency mining setups. Perhaps it will be a good read for those who are starting research in this area.
Question
Here is my little effort for answering this question during 2021 SITOPARA Research Conference (New Zealand, 15 Oct):
Please share your comments!
Question
Simulations showed a 48% rise in #solar #energy accumulation by the #photovoltaic (#PV) panels within the same installation area when installed at a 16° inclined field.
Read more about the research we are doing at the Southern Institute of Technology:
"Optimizing the inclined field for solar photovoltaic arrays."
#solarpv #solarenergy #solarenergysystem #solarpanels #solarinstallation #appropriatetechnology #cleantech #renewableenergy #sustainability #solarnews #newzealand pv magazine Asia Solar PV Magazine NZAID New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade Auckland University of Technology NED University of Engineering and Technology
Question
You can increase the #solar power generation in your backyard by installing the #PV panels at varying tilt angles and row-spacings. 14% better performance was calculated for a site in #Auckland. This makes our research at the Southern Institute of Technology so significant. Let's find out more about our research: "An optical-energy model for optimizing the geometrical layout of solar photovoltaic arrays in a constrained field (Elsevier Renewable Energy)"
#solarpv #solarenergy #solarenergysystem #solarpanels #solarinstallation #appropriatetechnology #cleantech #renewableenergy #sustainability #solarnews #newzealand
Question
I am after some good but FREE tool for generating color contour graphs. Any suggestion?

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