Thermal comfort investigation for commercial aircraft cabin by using CFD

For a commercial aircraft cabin, a set of parametric studies are investigated in order to suggest the proper design conditions. Nowadays, more people, including those with impaired health or who are otherwise potentially sensitive to cabin environmental conditions, are traveling by air than ever before. Global traffic is estimated to be over one billion passengers annually. The flying public demands a comfortable and a safe cabin environment because they may encounter a combination of environmental factors including low humidity, low air pressure, and sometimes, exposure to air contaminants such as ozone, carbon monoxide, various organic compounds. It was reported that 22 passengers among the 120 passengers on a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing were infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Therefore, it is essential to examine the cabin environment to ensure that it is safe, healthy, and comfortable for the flying public. Air distributions in commercial airliner cabins are used to regulate air temperature and air velocity to create a thermally comfortable environment and to provide adequate ventilation. Therefore, it is essential to study how the air is distributed in the air cabins and to characterize how the airflow transports pollutants. CFD modeling techniques using the ANSYS FLUENT 15.0 package solved the continuity, momentum, energy, and species transport equations in addition to k-ε model equations for turbulence closure. The SIMPLEC algorithm was used for the pressure-velocity coupling and a second order upwind scheme was used for discretization of the governing equations. Mesh sizes used in the present work exceeded 6,000,000 mesh volumes in one case. This paper will study the transient case to guarantee the air curtain performance, and to ensure the time needed to safe the passengers from Sarin, and the effect of the dump design for sarin rejection.