Vice Chancellor Message

Educational Qualification and Field of Specialization

Dr. R. Velraj, Professor, Institute for Energy Studies specialized in Thermal Energy Storage, Solar Energy, Desalination, Energy efficient buildings, Energy Auditing and Management, and fundamental studies of Heat Transfer & Computational Fluid Dynamics.

Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical- Annamalai University), Masters on Energy Engineering (Anna University) and Ph.D. at Anna University and part of the doctoral research he carried out in Solar Institute, Juelich, Germany for a period of 20 months (1995 - 1997) under DAAD Fellowship by Germany.

Administrative Experience (14 Years)

• Administrative position as Deputy Director, Centre for Engineering Partnership (renamed as Centre for affiliation of Institutions) for 6 years from 2004 to 2010.

• Director, AU - FRG Institute for CAD/CAM for 3 years from 2010 to 2013.

• Director, Institute for Energy Studies for 5 years from 2013 to 2018.

• Attended LEAP training for a period of 2 weeks in IIT-BHU Dt: 8.12.2019 to 21.12.2019 and 10 days in Cambridge University, U.K Dt: 19.12.2020 to 26.01.2020.

Research Credentials

• Executed 15 sponsored research projects (13 as PI and 2 as Co PI) which includes collaborative projects with Technical University, Munich, Germany, University of Birmingham, UK and Concordia University, Canada. Presently executing a research project as PI in collaboration with 7 Universities on the development of Renewable Energy based Microgrid with a grant of Rs. 15 crores and another project jointly with IIT, Madras in the field of solar Desalination (PI to AU - 1.75 crores).

• Published more than 225 research articles in journals of high repute, 1 book, 1 chapter and completed supervision of 37 Ph.D. 9 ongoing and contributed substantially for 8 more scholars.

• Editorial Board member of the Elsevier Journal 'Sustainable Cities and society'

• Scientific citation - 10150 with H-index of 52. (As per Google scholar citation).

 Consultancy, Industrial Collaborations and Technology Transfer

• Granted 2 patents in the field of cool thermal storage and compressed air energy storage and has filed 7 patents in the field of solar and other energy applications.

• Executed 38 consultancy projects - (28 As Principal Consultant & 10 as team member) for several industries in the area of energy technologies, Thermal Storage, CFD analysis and Biomass resource assessment studies.

• Made Technology transfer with "ETA SMART PVT LTD", a Chennai based company in the field of Cool Thermal Storage System through Anna University and two more technology transfer through Research project collaborations.

Green Initiatives and other Contributions to Society

• Served & Serving as resource person in various international and national forums in his field of research, reviewer for several international journals of repute, and member of Governing Council / Academic council/ Board of Studies for various Universities and Autonomous Institutions.

• Served & serving as expert member for various International research forums, Government bodies like International Energy Agency (IEA), Raj Bhavan, TEDA, IEI, Science City, TIDCO, TIDEL PARK, IRT, NLC, NIOT, AICTE, SAMEER, reputed Universities and Institutions and also for the Government funding bodies like MNRE, DST, NIWE and TNSCST.

• Initiated several international collaborations, Industrial collaborations and also visited several countries (Germany, Spain, UK, and Russia) as expert member/DST delegation.

• Organised several International and national workshops/conferences, Awareness programs on Solar Energy and conducted more than 100 short term training Programmes and beneficiaries are several students, scholars, academicians, various industrial stakeholders and public.