Assessment Of Health And Comfort Effects Of Volatile Organic Compounds In Commercial Airliner Cabins

In recent decades,with the acceleration of globalization and the repaid development of China’s economic strength,the number of airliner and passenger traffic in China have developed rapidly.Since the successful maiden flight of China’s first domestically-produced large passenge raircraft-C919,how to create a comfortable,healthy and safe cabin environment have become the key point for China’s aviation industry to be established in the global market.However,most relevant research cannot combine effectively the cabin environment parameters with passengers’health and comfort evaluation.Aimed at the above facts,relate work was conducted in this study and the main results are as follows:Firstly,environmental parameters of 20 international flights and 26 domestic flights were monitored continuously and nearly 1000 valid questionaires were collected.Environmental parameters include temperature,humidity,pressure,CO₂ as well as air sampling for VOCs and carbonyl compounds.And hence,we established a database of passengers’health and comfort in the airliner cabin.Secondly,the results of environmental parameters in cabin show that temperature and CO₂ concentration fluctuate within a narrow rage.During the cruising phase,the average temperature of flights ranges from 21°C to 30°C,the average CO₂concentration of flights ranges from 800 ppm to 1800 ppm.Relative humidity and atmospheric pressure in cabin begin to decrease when the aircraft takes off,and the minimum level is maintained during the cruise.During the cruising phase,the cabin pressure ranges from 80 to 90 k Pa.The relative humidity of international flights ranges from 10%to 20%,while 10%to 30%for domestic flights.In addition,the results of sample data show that the concentration of TVOC and single VOCs in domestic flight are higher than that of international flights.Furthermore,the results of questionnaire survey indicate that more than 90%passengers are acceptable for air quality in cabin.There are more complaints on odor,irritation and dryness perception.Meanwhile,in the long duration flights,the intensity of passengers’subjective assessment increase with flight duration.Finally,statistical analysis methods were applied to analyze the association of passengers’subjective assessment with cabin environment parameters.The analysis results indicated that styrene,limonene and formaldehyde in cabin have significant impact on passengers’perception of odor and irritaion.Passengers’dryness perception in international flights may be strongly caused by lower humidity.Passengers’thermal comfort was different in different seasons.Therefore,setting the proper cabin temperature flexibly according to the season is the key problem for capassengers’thermal comfort.