Tahir Iqbal is an agricultural engineer by training and a researcher by passion. He teaches renewable energy and conservation at PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan as a lecturer. Currently, he is doing research on fast pyrolysis for conversion of biomass into bio-oil under his Ph.D. research project at North China Electric Power University, Beijing. Sustainable and renewable energy, resource conservation and energy efficiency are his areas of interest.
Development in agricultural mechanization can increase the crop production by decreasing the cost... more Development in agricultural mechanization can increase the crop production by decreasing the costs of production. The study was carried out at Workshop Department of Farm Machinery and Power, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad with an aim to fabricate and test an appropriate self propelled multi crop seed drill (SMSD) for wheat, soybean and cotton. The study was divided into two phases, 1.Machine fabrication, and 2.Economic feasibility for adoption of small farmers. The machine was fabricated using locally available material and facilities. Before developing the complete unit, drilling unit was developed and then drilling unit was attached with power source. In order to place seed at proper depth in soil, hoe type 7 furrow openers was attached for wheat having row to row spacing 23 cm and 3 furrow openers for cotton having row to row spacing 76 cm. The performance of SMSD was quite satisfactory. Its fuel consumption cost was less than tractor mounted seed drill cost per hectare. The Sowing cost using SMSD per hectare is Rs. 208 while tractor mounted seed drill cost per hectare is Rs.791. SMSD can perform other field operations, farmers can be use to hitch farm trolley, and use for hoeing operation. This machine is a little step towards the cost reduction of the basic agricultural machinery. Self propelled multi crop seed drill (SMSD) is economically feasible for adoption of small land holders.
Field performance of the boom sprayer was evaluated at three different plot sizes, three differen... more Field performance of the boom sprayer was evaluated at three different plot sizes, three different operating pressures and at three different forward speeds of tractor. Four spraying operations were performed. At the first two sprays only the sucking insects (Jassid, and Whiteflies) were analyzed for mortality as there were no bollworms at that stage. In third and fourth spray bollworms were analyzed for mortality. The experiment was done to find out the effects of pressure and velocity on mortality of white fly, jassid and bollworms and the effect of field size on field efficiency of boom sprayer. The results indicated that increase in velocity decreases the mortality or sucking insects as well as bollworm insects. Best field speed for crop spraying operation was observed to be 4.0 km/h. Working pressure of 400 kPa has a significant effect on insect mortality. For same width of fields, longer the field more the productive time, therefore, more will be the field efficiency of the sprayer. Lower field speed had more sprayer field efficiency than the greater field speed. The reason could be the more time required for turning at field ends to less maneuverability of tractor the operator might had found difficulty in controlling over the tractor holding more wider sprayer mounted behind.
In this study mechanization index (MI) was assessed, its influence on corn productivity in corres... more In this study mechanization index (MI) was assessed, its influence on corn productivity in correspondence with socioeconomic factors of Pakistani farmers were further analyzed through inter correlation and linear regression analysis. An overall MI ensued 0.60 per hectare with an average corn yield 142.7 mon/ha. Furthermore, results revealed that large farmers had higher MI and corn yield as compared to the small and medium ones and it varied from 0.85 to 0.34 with negative fluctuation in farm size. Moreover, farmers specific and socioeconomic variables (such as farmers education, farming experience, dependency burden, ownership status of machines and external support towards agriculture machinery) were used to observe their influence on MI. Education level, owned and subsidized agriculture machinery have a significant effect while farming experience and dependency burden found an egative effect on MI. So, improving the farmers educational level through literacy campaign and long-term investment for creating support services infrastructure is require to increase the MI at corn farms of Pakistan., and T. Iqbal. 2017. Quantification of mechanization index and its impact on crop productivity and socioeconomic factors. International Agricultural Engineering Journal, 26(3): –.
This Study presents the results of a three dimensional simulation of a tunnel spillway with four ... more This Study presents the results of a three dimensional simulation of a tunnel spillway with four aerators of Jingping-1 hydropower project as done by using ANSYS. The study uses a combination of realizable k-ε turbulence model and volume of fluid method in order to simulate the characteristics of aeration and cavitation in aerated tunnel spillway. It is possible to yield the water surface profile, pressure distribution, velocity profile and aeration cavity length from the simulation. Results of numerical simulation were compared with experimental results showing that the realizable k-ε turbulence model and volume of fluid model can simulate the aerated tunnel spillway. The aerated cavity zone was found to be stable and within reasonable length. Results from the numerical simulation were found to resemble the experimental result to a great extent, showing the validity of the simulation.
High concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased dependency on photovoltaic... more High concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased dependency on photovoltaic (PV) power, but its random nature poses a challenge for system operators to precisely predict and forecast PV power. The conventional forecasting methods were accurate for clean weather. But when the PV plants worked under heavy haze, the radiation is negatively impacted and thus reducing PV power; therefore, to deal with haze weather, Air Quality Index (AQI) is introduced as a parameter to predict PV power. AQI, which is an indication of how polluted the air is, has been known to have a strong correlation with power generated by the PV panels. In this paper, a hybrid method based on the model of conventional back propagation (BP) neural network for clear weather and BP AQI model for haze weather is used to forecast PV power with conventional parameters like temperature, wind speed, humidity, solar radiation, and an extra parameter of AQI as input. The results show that the proposed method has less error under haze condition as compared to conventional model of neural network.
This study deals with, the estimation of energy consumption, energy flow and energy efficiency in... more This study deals with, the estimation of energy consumption, energy flow and energy efficiency in wheat production of Pakistan. A cross-sectional data of 200 wheat growers were collected followed by multistage sampling. Results depicted the overall energy consumption of 29787.0 MJ ha-1 in wheat production with an average yield of 3643.3 kg ha-1. Energy efficiency, specific energy, energy productivity and net energy gain were 1.59, 8.18 MJ kg-1, 0.12 kgMJ-1 and 17575.23 MJ ha-1 respectively. Furthermore, data envelopment analysis approach has been employed for technical efficiency assessment. Fertilizer, diesel fuel and electricity, were the main energy inputs to wheat production, contributing 83% of total input energy. Therefore, for DEA input database, we considered these three inputs (fertilizer, diesel fuel, and electricity) as input and yield (kg ha-1) as output. Findings revealed that the average technical efficiency score was 73 %, with a plausible potential of energy saving from 1726.06 to 17013.99MJ ha-1.
Development in agricultural mechanization can increase the crop production by decreasing the cost... more Development in agricultural mechanization can increase the crop production by decreasing the costs of production. The study was carried out at Workshop Department of Farm Machinery and Power, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad with an aim to fabricate and test an appropriate self propelled multi crop seed drill (SMSD) for wheat, soybean and cotton. The study was divided into two phases, 1.Machine fabrication, and 2.Economic feasibility for adoption of small farmers. The machine was fabricated using locally available material and facilities. Before developing the complete unit, drilling unit was developed and then drilling unit was attached with power source. In order to place seed at proper depth in soil, hoe type 7 furrow openers was attached for wheat having row to row spacing 23 cm and 3 furrow openers for cotton having row to row spacing 76 cm. The performance of SMSD was quite satisfactory. Its fuel consumption cost was less than tractor mounted seed drill cost per hectare. The Sowing cost using SMSD per hectare is Rs. 208 while tractor mounted seed drill cost per hectare is Rs.791. SMSD can perform other field operations, farmers can be use to hitch farm trolley, and use for hoeing operation. This machine is a little step towards the cost reduction of the basic agricultural machinery. Self propelled multi crop seed drill (SMSD) is economically feasible for adoption of small land holders.
Field performance of the boom sprayer was evaluated at three different plot sizes, three differen... more Field performance of the boom sprayer was evaluated at three different plot sizes, three different operating pressures and at three different forward speeds of tractor. Four spraying operations were performed. At the first two sprays only the sucking insects (Jassid, and Whiteflies) were analyzed for mortality as there were no bollworms at that stage. In third and fourth spray bollworms were analyzed for mortality. The experiment was done to find out the effects of pressure and velocity on mortality of white fly, jassid and bollworms and the effect of field size on field efficiency of boom sprayer. The results indicated that increase in velocity decreases the mortality or sucking insects as well as bollworm insects. Best field speed for crop spraying operation was observed to be 4.0 km/h. Working pressure of 400 kPa has a significant effect on insect mortality. For same width of fields, longer the field more the productive time, therefore, more will be the field efficiency of the sprayer. Lower field speed had more sprayer field efficiency than the greater field speed. The reason could be the more time required for turning at field ends to less maneuverability of tractor the operator might had found difficulty in controlling over the tractor holding more wider sprayer mounted behind.
In this study mechanization index (MI) was assessed, its influence on corn productivity in corres... more In this study mechanization index (MI) was assessed, its influence on corn productivity in correspondence with socioeconomic factors of Pakistani farmers were further analyzed through inter correlation and linear regression analysis. An overall MI ensued 0.60 per hectare with an average corn yield 142.7 mon/ha. Furthermore, results revealed that large farmers had higher MI and corn yield as compared to the small and medium ones and it varied from 0.85 to 0.34 with negative fluctuation in farm size. Moreover, farmers specific and socioeconomic variables (such as farmers education, farming experience, dependency burden, ownership status of machines and external support towards agriculture machinery) were used to observe their influence on MI. Education level, owned and subsidized agriculture machinery have a significant effect while farming experience and dependency burden found an egative effect on MI. So, improving the farmers educational level through literacy campaign and long-term investment for creating support services infrastructure is require to increase the MI at corn farms of Pakistan., and T. Iqbal. 2017. Quantification of mechanization index and its impact on crop productivity and socioeconomic factors. International Agricultural Engineering Journal, 26(3): –.
This Study presents the results of a three dimensional simulation of a tunnel spillway with four ... more This Study presents the results of a three dimensional simulation of a tunnel spillway with four aerators of Jingping-1 hydropower project as done by using ANSYS. The study uses a combination of realizable k-ε turbulence model and volume of fluid method in order to simulate the characteristics of aeration and cavitation in aerated tunnel spillway. It is possible to yield the water surface profile, pressure distribution, velocity profile and aeration cavity length from the simulation. Results of numerical simulation were compared with experimental results showing that the realizable k-ε turbulence model and volume of fluid model can simulate the aerated tunnel spillway. The aerated cavity zone was found to be stable and within reasonable length. Results from the numerical simulation were found to resemble the experimental result to a great extent, showing the validity of the simulation.
High concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased dependency on photovoltaic... more High concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased dependency on photovoltaic (PV) power, but its random nature poses a challenge for system operators to precisely predict and forecast PV power. The conventional forecasting methods were accurate for clean weather. But when the PV plants worked under heavy haze, the radiation is negatively impacted and thus reducing PV power; therefore, to deal with haze weather, Air Quality Index (AQI) is introduced as a parameter to predict PV power. AQI, which is an indication of how polluted the air is, has been known to have a strong correlation with power generated by the PV panels. In this paper, a hybrid method based on the model of conventional back propagation (BP) neural network for clear weather and BP AQI model for haze weather is used to forecast PV power with conventional parameters like temperature, wind speed, humidity, solar radiation, and an extra parameter of AQI as input. The results show that the proposed method has less error under haze condition as compared to conventional model of neural network.
This study deals with, the estimation of energy consumption, energy flow and energy efficiency in... more This study deals with, the estimation of energy consumption, energy flow and energy efficiency in wheat production of Pakistan. A cross-sectional data of 200 wheat growers were collected followed by multistage sampling. Results depicted the overall energy consumption of 29787.0 MJ ha-1 in wheat production with an average yield of 3643.3 kg ha-1. Energy efficiency, specific energy, energy productivity and net energy gain were 1.59, 8.18 MJ kg-1, 0.12 kgMJ-1 and 17575.23 MJ ha-1 respectively. Furthermore, data envelopment analysis approach has been employed for technical efficiency assessment. Fertilizer, diesel fuel and electricity, were the main energy inputs to wheat production, contributing 83% of total input energy. Therefore, for DEA input database, we considered these three inputs (fertilizer, diesel fuel, and electricity) as input and yield (kg ha-1) as output. Findings revealed that the average technical efficiency score was 73 %, with a plausible potential of energy saving from 1726.06 to 17013.99MJ ha-1.
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