State-of-the-art methods for studying air distributions in commercial airliner cabins

Abstract

Air distributions in commercial airliner cabins are crucial for creating a thermally comfortable and healthy cabin environment. This paper reviewed the methods used in predicting, designing, and analyzing air distributions in the cabins. Two popular methods are experimental measurements and numerical simulations. The experimental measurements have usually been seen as more reliable although they are more expensive and time consuming. Most of the numerical simulations use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) that can provide effectively detailed information. Numerous applications using the two methods can be found in the literature for studying air distributions in aircraft cabin, including investigations on more reliable and accurate models. Our review shows that studies using both experimental measurements and computer simulations are becoming popular. Our review also found that it is necessary to use a full-scale test rig to obtain reliable and high quality experimental data, and that the hybrid CFD models are rather promising for simulating air distributions in airliner cabins.

Experimental study on characteristics of the jet flow from an aircraft gasper

“…For a typical singleaisle aircraft, the air is mainly supplied from the diffusers located at the upper part of the side walls and mixed in the middle of the cabin. At the lower part of the side walls, part of the air is exhausted and the other is re-circulated [8,9]. The passengers are located at the recirculation region; therefore the supplied clean air reached the passengers after mixing with the polluted (re-circulated) air.…”

“…To investigate the air distribution in an airliner cabin, there are mainly two methods available: experimental measurements and numerical simulations [8]. Experimental studies are usually thought to be more reliable.…”

Experimental study of transient air distribution of a jet collision region in an aircraft cabin mock-up

“…In the last two decades, by both experimental measurements and numerical simulations, many studies of the air distribution in cabins have been done [2], and most of them focused on the steady state because they are more convenient to work with and lead to easier conclusions. However, because the aircraft cabin environment always has many uncertain characteristics, such as frequent jet interactions, multiple heat sources, and a complex and irregular interior geometry [8], and the instantaneous characteristics of the air distribution in the cabin play an important role in thermal comfort and pollutant dispersion, time-averaged data alone may not reflect the real airflow features sufficiently.…”

“…In commercial airliners, mixing air distribution systems are commonly utilized for air circulation [1][2][3]. However, these systems are far from perfect, as indicated by passenger complaints about discomfort and frequent cross-infection incidents, especially in recent years [4][5][6][7].…”

Parametric Investigation Using Computational Fluid Dynamics of the HVAC Air Distribution in a Railway Vehicle for Representative Weather and Operating Conditions

“…As discussed by Liu et al, in its literature review paper [4] (focused on the particular case of commercial airliner cabins), two main approaches are available for analyzing air distribution: experimental measurements inside the cabin (with different equipment such as hotwire anemometers and hot-sphere anemometers, particle tracking velocimetry, particle streak velocimetry, particle image velocimetry, and ultrasonic anemometry) and numerical simulations (mainly CFD simulations). R. Lieto [5] studied, both numerically and experimentally, the indoor climate in city busses.…”