ASHRAE Singapore Chapter
ASHRAE® American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc

ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer Talk
Decoupled ventilation strategies for enhanced IAQ – “Demand cooling” and “Demand ventilation”
Presented by Dr Chandra Sekhar
Associate Professor and Director of External Relations Department of Building
National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

Application for accreditation of points has been made to the Professional Engineers Board
i) The organiser reserves the right to cancel or postpone the event due to unforeseen circumstances.
ii) The fee per participant is inclusive of GST. No refunds will be provided, but substitutions are
allowed if the seminar organiser is informed by 10 April 2007.

ABSTRACTS
Decoupled ventilation strategies for enhanced IAQ – “Demand cooling” and “Demand ventilation”
The concept of decoupling “ventilation air” from “supply air” is fast emerging as an ideal
solution to combat the problems associated with poor indoor air quality (IAQ). This talk will
present the Personalised Ventilation (PV) system and the Single Coil Twin Fan (SCTF) system,
which show considerable promise in their abilities to provide both good IAQ and energy
efficiency. The PV system is fundamentally aimed at improving ventilation in the immediate
breathing zones of occupants in the built environment. The SCTF system is a new airconditioning
and air distribution system that improves occupants’ thermal comfort and indoor
air quality whilst significantly saving energy. It provides “demand ventilation” and “demand
cooling” by dynamically responding to the varying requirements in the individual occupied
zones of a building.

SPEAKER’S PROFILE
CHANDRA SEKHAR, Ph.D.
Department of Building
National University of Singapore
Singapore

Dr Chandra Sekhar is currently an Associate Professor and Director of External Relations in the
Department of Building at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also a Founding
Director of Enhanced Air Quality Pte Ltd., a NUS Spin-off Company incorporated in June 2004,
arising out of his research in the fields of indoor air quality (IAQ) and Energy. He has been an
IAQ consultant in Singapore since 1993. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from
the University of Adelaide, Australia, and continued as a postdoctoral fellow at the same
university until 1991 where he worked towards the continued development of energy efficient
cooling and dehumidification systems. In 1992, he joined NUS as a Faculty and has since
been teaching and conducting research in the areas of ventilation and indoor air quality,
airconditioningand ventilation systems, building energy analysis and has published more than
100 papers in these areas in several international journals and conferences.

Dr Sekhar is an editorial board member of Energy and Buildings journal (Elsevier) and is a
regular reviewer of articles for several international journals, such as, ASHRAE HVAC&R
Research Journal; Indoor Air; Energy and Buildings; Energy. He was the recipient of The
Enterprise Challenge award of the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore in 2004. He is actively
involved in the development of local IAQ, ventilation and energy standards in Singapore. He is
a member of the International Scientific Committee of the Healthy Buildings, Indoor Air and
ROOMVENT series of conferences and was the Technical Co-Chair and member of the
organising committee of the Healthy Buildings 2003, the Seventh International Conference in
Singapore in 2003.

In September 2005, Dr Sekhar was elected as a Member of the International Academy of
Indoor Air Sciences (IAIAS). He is a member of ASHRAE; International Society for Indoor Air
Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) and Institution of Engineers, Australia (CPEng, IEAust). Within
ASHRAE, he is currently a member of Environmental Health Committee (EHC), SSPC 62.1,
SSPC 55, TC 2.1 and TC 4.3 as well as the CTTC Chairman of ASHRAE Singapore Chapter.
Application for accreditation of points has been made to the Professional Engineers Board.