Dr Varun Pratap Singh
Dr Singh is a Postdoctoral Fellow at STERG from India. He is an Assistant Professor and Industry-Academia coordinator with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Mechanical Cluster) in the School of Advance Engineering, UPES, India.
At STERG, Dr Singh is responsible for the design, development, and performance analysis of high-temperature solar thermal concentrators for heat generation applications and the developm
ent of a universal solar thermal testing rig for different solar thermal concentrators. Beyond doing research work he is also writing various research grants, including “dust loading simulator for the solar field” and “development of standards and data book for different dust cleaning mechanisms used for Heliostat, Parabolic Trough, and PV Panel cleaning”. Moreover, Dr Singh is also writing an industrial grant for the development of an Ostrich feather-based solar reflector cleaning mechanism. Dr Singh also contributes to STERG by sharing his experience with other postgraduates and PhD scholars.
Beyond academia, Dr Singh loves doing new experiments with his surroundings to create a better understanding of mother nature. Of his interests, he says: “I enjoy seed growing, planting, swimming, mountain hiking, coin collecting, being a foodie, surfing the Internet, travelling, making business plans, and being interested in new technology.”
Dr Sohaib Osman
Dr Osman is a Postdoctoral Fellow at STERG from Sudan. He researches solar thermal technologies, specialising on experimental convection heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and nanofluids. Furthermore, he has more than 14 years of experience in higher education i
n several countries, including Sudan, Eritrea, and South Africa.
At STERG, Dr Osman is responsible for designing a cost-effective truncated pyramidical pile of crushed rocks with vertical and horizontal flow directions. A set of experiments will be conducted to validate existing pressure drop data that was measured at STERG. Temperature measurements across the bed are going to be recorded during the charging and discharging phases to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the proposed bed.
Beyond academia, Dr Osman enjoys football and travelling.
We wish Dr Singh and Dr Osman all the best with their projects at STERG and hope that they enjoy their stay in Stellenbosch.
Article by Benjamin Gardiner