Numerical Simulation Of Cabin Air Quality In An Aircraft

When aircraft is flying in the atmosphere, the external environment is facing the poor low pressure conditions, and the environment inside the aircraft is also a fiasco. Good aircraft environmental control systems can not only solve this problem, but also provide a suitable environment for the reliable operation of equipments and safety of cabin crew and passengers.So air environment in aircraft cabins is very important for passengers and crew for providing a healthy and comfortable environment. To improve the air distribution system design for aircraft cabins, this investigation used numerical simulation to study the flow field and thermal fields inside the aircraft cabin under different air inlet conditions. To develop a numerical tool, this study used a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program to gain insight of the general airflow pattern. A detailed CFD model of a small section in the passenger cabin of this aircraft was built and a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation was performed. And in the actual calculation, the k-εequations is used in the RANS simulation to adjust turbulence. Then the CFD program was used to calculate the distributions of the air velocity, air temperature, and CO2 concentration in a section of the actual aircraft cabin with the ceiling air supply system and luggage air displacement system (which could be considered or not personalized air distribution systems), respectively. By comparing the air and contaminant distributions in the cabin, this study concluded that the ceiling air supply with the personalized air distribution system provided the best air quality. The numerical results provide a guide for the design and optimization of airflow in aircraft cabins of environmental control system.