Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Christmas in Singapore was bitter sweet. I wasn't able to spend it at home with my family but I was able to watch the kids open presents over skype on Christmas Eve which was really fun! I was able to spend Christmas Eve with some new Singaporean friends by going to midnight mass and Christmas Day included an awesome feast at the Paulaner Brauhaus with some other really great friends! I'm now looking forward to New Years with my good friend Kyle Hoback and then our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia! Will have tons of pictures from that trip and also Java, Thailand, and Malaysia soon!

Seasons

Something that has really been freaking me out lately is the fact that the temperature/weather here in Singapore has remained relatively unchanged since I got here in July. Adding to this is the fact that Nebraska July and Singapore July are pretty similar as well. This equates to almost eight months now of continuous 80-90F (25-32C) weather! This is inconvenient when, as a continental climater, I base my perception of what I should be doing on the weather - For example, when it starts to get cold then I should be watching football; when it gets really cold I should be preparing for Christmas. Since none of those things have happened I feel as if I'm stuck in summer vacation forever!

Singapore Weather:

Omaha Weather:

Source: Wolframalpha.com

Oh well, I guess I should stop complaining. I'm sitting by the pool writing this blog entry! :)

"So, you study air conditioning?"

After scanning through previous blog posts I have realized that many times I promised a post which gives an overview of what my Fulbright research project actually entails. (ie: where your tax dollars are actually being spent to support my conquest for cultural mutual understanding between Singapore and the USA). Therefore I'd like to give a brief, yet enthralling explanation of what I'm doing here and where I'm at so far. Disclaimer: "enthralling" used with sarcasm.

In a nutshell, the main goal of my project is to further develop a new type of air conditioning system which has the potential to more efficiently use cooling energy in buildings and increase the thermal comfort and indoor air quality for the occupants. How? Well, let me explain

I don't think this is news to anyone- Singapore is HOT and HUMID. Air conditioning systems are designed with two main functions: to cool the air (known as the sensible cooling load) and remove moisture (the latent load). Most systems in the world do this by cooling the air down to a certain point (around 55 deg F/12 deg C) and then supplying it to all of the spaces at whatever flow rate is requested by the thermostat. Sounds simple right? Well the complicated part is when the system has to supply a certain quantity of "fresh" air from the outdoors in addition to the recirculated air from the space. In potentially densely populated zones such as classrooms and movie theaters, this amount of fresh air could be very high - sometimes more than what the thermostat is asking for. This situation is what we is referred to here as "Singapore Winter". The system is required to supply more cold air to the space to accommodate the fresh air requirement than what is needed to cool the space.  Since the fresh air and recirculated air are mixed before cooling and only a small percentage of the supplied air is from the outdoors, a significant supply of frigid air is dumped into the space resulting in a refrigerated case-type feeling when the space is not a max capacity.

In many cases in the US, the way this situation is mitigated is by having a reheat coil in the duct serving each room which can reheat the air back up so the occupants don't get too cold. Common sense tells us that this is silly - cooling air down and reheating it back up in the middle of the summer. Many energy codes, including Singapore, restrict or ban such reheat systems as they are wasteful.

In an attempt to solve both the cooling and dehumidifying problem in an energy efficient way, a group of professors here have developed and tested a new way of orienting a typical A/C configuration so that the fresh air and recirculated air are not mixed and are controlled separately. Without going too far into the details, this system, called the Single-Coil, Twin-Fan System (SCTF) saves energy by allowing the fans to decrease speed in response to both thermal and humidity related loads which translates into fan and cooling energy reductions. A very good, albeit lengthy, animated presentation can be found on the website of a spin off company which the professors created (and I guess I'm sort of working for).

My task in all of this is to modify or create modules within the building energy simulation program EnergyPlus which would allow it to simulate and predict the energy consumption of this unique system type. This would allow engineers to test this system in theory and compare it to conventional system types in various climates and building types. All-in-all it could help reduce some of the 700,000,000,000 kWh used in buildings per year (40% of all energy consumption), create more awareness of poor conventional A/C practices, and promote communication between Singapore and other places with similar climates (many located in the USA)

Those of you with technical interest, (and who knows, maybe even feedback!!): below is a graphic with my major tasks outlined on a schematic of the SCTF system. 

Singapore Housing Conquest

As many people may know, I have been looking for places to stay for the last few months as my current apartment's three month lease came to a close in Oct. It turned out to be one of the most frustrating processes in my entire life. Housing in Singapore is a much different concept than in the US. Local young professionals/students generally live with their parents until they're married and most expats have cushy jobs in big companies which allows them to live in really nice expensive condos. My unique situation put me in the market of the numerous "room for rent" ads that are placed online. I conducted an extensive investigation and had about 15-20 viewings (not kidding) - the biggest challenge was to find a room that wasn't with a family or weird land lord who would have all kinds of really random and weird restrictions. Examples include: curfews, daily cleaning schedules, no electronic equipment, and my personal favorite, no washing of socks is allowed in the washing machine. This type of random room market is the results of basically no apartment-type complexes on the island due to the rules by the HDB (Housing and Development Board). The HDB builds and regulates most of the housing in Singapore where 70-80% of the population lives in public housing.

In the end, I was able to get really lucky and find two housing options; the first for 20 days in a high-rise luxury condo by Marina Bay and the second is a room in a much more humble yet convenient condo very close to school in which I'll stay till I leave in April. The luxury condo, The Sail @ Marina Bay is a "six star, super luxury" place which is excessively upperclass for my needs but I found it on craigslist and the guy who lives there (an American, Mike) was looking for a short termer in kind of a small bedroom and gave me a good deal.

Things worked out well and now I get to hang out in the coolest residential building in Singapore for a few weeks!

Pics of the view from the skydeck of my new condo at Marina Bay:

Nebraska Engineering Alum Magazine

This came out over a month ago and I'm finally getting around to putting it up. I made it my alumni magazine from Nebraska, not once with my Fulbright story but twice with the Sand in the City coverage!

FULL ONLINE VERSION FOUND HERE

Volcano Trekking in East Java Indonesia

This weekend I put down the EnergyPlus manual and flew off to Indonesia with a group of the Chinese graduate students from my program. We flew into Surabaya, East Java and spent three days in a hot van on extremely "Indonesian" roads (you'd have to be there to understand) to go to the two Volcano groups of Mt Bromo and Ijen Crater.


View East Java Volcano Trekking Trip in a larger map

Mt Bromo and surrounding volcanoes at sunrise (Yoyo's Pic)

At the edge of Mt Bromo

There were two new life experiences rolled into one for this trip. First, my senses were exposed to some of the most unique and epic views of the volcanoes. We were taken up to the summit of a nearby ridge to see Mt. Bromo at 4:30AM sunrise and climbed to the top of Ijen Crater to see the milky blue water of the sulfuric lake within the crater. The pictures that were taken can never do the view justice.

The second experience was to hang out and get to know the fellow Chinese students from my program. It was very interesting to get to know their culture and individual personalities.

The whole crew

Ijen Crater

Below I've posted some of the videos that I took on this trip - kind of my first psuedo video blog attempt.

Formula One Race

Despite my American ignorance about the rest of the world's sports obsessions, soon after arriving in Singapore in July I realized that the Formula One Race that was held here last weekend was a big deal! F1 is the world's most popular racing event - it's kind of like the rich man's Nascar. My Swiss friend Jerone scored a few tickets and had one  "walk around" ticket that he was able to sell me. The race was ridiculous! You can see the pictures here


Also here's a little video - it's hard to describe the noise and the excitement that you get when those cars fly by. Soo much power.





The next week or two I will be spending night and day on my project outline. I hope to make the time to have a good post regarding the SCTF system and the specifics about my project when that is completed. And after all the hard work is complete, I'm heading to Java for a trip to Mr Bromo at the end of October.... pretty excited about that.