Trip Report - International Travel Award, March 2016
Bakhtier Farouk, Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department
I attended the 6th International Conference on Energy Research and Development (ICERD-6)
that was held during March 14-16, 2016, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kuwait. The conference
was well attended by researchers from Kuwait, USA, Europe, Australia and India.
The conference was organized by Kuwait University (KU), ASHRAE, Kuwait Foundation for the
Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) and Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW).The conference
builds upon the five previous conferences which have attracted the international energy research
and development community.
The theme of the conference was “Advances in Energy Research and Development.” Special
emphasis was put on emerging energy conversion technologies, conservation and management
strategies. The objective was to optimize the utilization of basic energy resources in the major
energy consuming sectors in the arid region of the Arabian Peninsula.
The conference aimed to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and practicing
experts to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all advancements in
energy applied systems. The technical program covered several topics that included:
Renewable Energy Applications
Thermal Comfort and Indoor Air Quality
Not-in-Kind Technologies: Cooling
Energy Management
Cooling Applications
Heat Transfer
Building Envelope
Energy Performance
Fluid Flow
Refrigerants
Power Plant Applications
I participated as a panelist and gave a presentation in the subgroup ‘Refrigerants’ with the paper
titled, “Performance Enhancement and Optimization of a Binary Refrigerant Domestic
Refrigerator”. The presentation was based on our recent research activities with four of our MEM
seniors as the co-author. I also participated in preparing the Conference recommendations for
future research and activities in the above areas.
I was able to present some of our new results that I think should help maintain my status as one
at the forefront of this area of research. I also interacted with Kuwaiti students in the conference
regarding Drexel as a potential place for them to come to if they want to work in the area of
refrigeration and heat transfer processes.
Overall, the conference was very productive for me. I was able to interact with a number of Kuwaiti
and European colleagues and discussed about our simulations of transport in refrigeration and
heat transfer processes and their potential application in new areas like fracking for oil and gas
exploration. I was able to have a number of extended lunch/dinner discussions with conference
attendees who are well recognized researchers in the field. I was also able to attend most of the
other sessions in the Conference and found several of the papers to be of great interest to me...
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My visit to Kuwait City, Kuwait allowed me to have brief visits to the University of Kuwait campus.
In fact, this was my first visit to Kuwait. My host Professor Walid Chakroun from the University of
Kuwait extended me a very warm welcome to the upcoming university.
Support from an ITA award was a significant factor in enabling my attendance at the 6th
International Conference on Energy Research and Development (ICERD-6) that was held during
March 14-16, 2016, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kuwait. At nearly $2000 for the trip (airfare being
over $1000), my international travel budget would not have been enough without this extra bit of
help from the Drexel University International Travel Award.
The Kuwait Towers: a group of three slender towers in Kuwait City. The Towers were officially
inaugurated in March 1979 and are regarded as a landmark and symbol of modern Kuwait.
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