Air Distribution System for Infection Reduction in Commercial Airplane Premium Economy and Business Class Passenger Seats

Abstract

In previous works made by the authors, a new air distribution system with Personalized Ventilation (PV) combined with Underfloor Air Distribution (UFAD) has been proposed. The proposed system in four different configurations provided thermal comfort, as well as a shield between passengers for infection reduction in economy class seats in an airplane. This work extends the previous works by studying the same system for premium economy and business class seats which have extra spacing between passengers. The proposed system provided enhanced thermal comfort despite the extra spacing of the seats. The Predictive Mean Vote (PMV) has recorded the best value of 0.38 for the business class seats compared to all the other seating configurations. Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD) has also been improved with values of 12.2% and 10.9% for the premium economy and business classes respectively. In addition to thermal comfort, the proposed system still provides an adequate air shield for passengers in the widely spaced premium economy and business classes. It is recommended as an alternative to the conventional mixed ventilation system in a commercial airplane for all seating plans.