Come join us for the 7th monthly meeting of the ASHRAE Hawaii Chapter.  

This meeting is free for all ASHRAE Hawaii Chapter members and non-members! We kindly request that you consider making a small donation when you register. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic situation, 100% of proceeds from this meeting will be donated to local Hawaii foodbanks. The ASHRAE Hawaii Chapter will be matching attendee donations as well. Mahalo for your continued support of ASHRAE during this time, and we look forward to having you join us virtually for this great topic!

Our virtual speaker is Dr. Sekhar.  His home chapter in Singapore is also invited to join us for this meeting, which is free to Singapore members too. Please register through the ASHRAE Hawaii Chapter website so you may receive the GoToMeeting link. It will be emailed out to registrants before the meeting.

Where to Park - N/A

Advanced room air distribution strategies

for effective airborne infection control

GBCI Approved | 1 CE Hour | 0920017421

AIA Approved| 1 LU |Sekhar06

In the context of airborne infection control, it is critical that the ventilation system is able to extract the contaminated exhaled air within the shortest possible time.  In order to minimize the spread of contaminated air exhaled by occupants efficiently, a novel Personalized Ventilation (PV) - Personalized Exhaust (PE) system has been developed, which aims to exhaust the exhaled air as much as possible from around the infected person.  The PV-PE system was studied experimentally for a particular healthcare setting based on a typical consultation room geometry and four different medical consultation positions of an infected person and a healthy person.  The findings are encouraging and the PV-PE system is envisaged to help in the ventilation design of consultation rooms in healthcare centers and hospitals. The advantage of PE for infection control can also be applied in any open area with the presence of an infected person to obtain better infection control as well as better inhaled air quality.

Presented by:  

Dr. Chandra Sekhar

Dr. Chandra Sekhar is currently a Professor and Program Director (M.Sc – Building Performance and Sustainability) and Co-Director (Centre for Integrated Building Energy and Sustainability in the Tropics) 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 holds BE (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Rajasthan (Malaviya National Institute of Technology), India and PhD (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in the area 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 thermal comfort, ventilation and indoor air quality, energy efficient HVAC systems, building energy analysis/management and integrated building design/operation and has published about 250 papers in these areas in several international journals and conferences.

Prof. Sekhar is an Associate Editor of ASHRAE Science and Technology for the Built Environment (STBE) [formerly HVAC&R Research] journal, Regional Editor (South East Asia) Indoor and Built Environment and an editorial board member of Energy and Buildings, Building and Environment, International Journal of Ventilation and International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment. He is a regular reviewer of articles for several international journals, such as, ASHRAE STBE and Transactions; Indoor Air; Energy and Buildings; Building and Environment; Energy; International Journal of Ventilation & Indoor and Built Environment. He is a co-inventor and holds 3 US and other patents in the area of energy efficient air-conditioning system with zonal ventilation control for enhanced indoor air quality. He is actively involved in the development of local IAQ, ventilation and energy standards in Singapore and received the SPRING Singapore Merit Award 2012 in recognition for his contributions towards Quality and Standards in Singapore. He is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the Healthy Buildings, Indoor Air, ROOMVENT, CLIMA and IAQVEC series of conferences. He was the Chair of the Steering Committee for ASHRAE IAQ2010 conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2010 and continues to be on the steering committee of subsequent ASHRAE IAQ conferences (Vancouver, 2013 and Alexandria, USA, 2016).

Prof Sekhar is a Fellow of ASHRAE and the International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ). He has been an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer since 2006 and is regularly invited as a DL speaker around the world. He is a recipient of the Environmental Health Award (2014), Exceptional Service Award (2013) and the Distinguished Service Award (2010) from ASHRAE. He is a co-recipient of The Enterprise Challenge award of the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore in 2004 and ASEAN Energy Award in 2011. He is also a member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (CPEng, IEAust). He currently serves as a Director-At-Large for the Society and is also a member of SSPC 62.1, SGPC 10, TC 2.1 and TC 4.3. He is a past Chair of the Environmental Health Committee (EHC, 2012-2013) and was a member of the IEQ-Global Alliance Ad Hoc Committee (2013-2017), EHC (2006-2012 & 2016-2018). He has also served the ASHRAE Singapore Chapter in various capacities, including as its President during 2010-2011 and as a BOG member.