An aisle displacement ventilation system for twin-aisle commercial airliner cabin

Abstract

The environmental control system in most commercial airliner cabins supplies air from shoulder and ceiling level and exhausts air at floor level on both sides of walls. The ventilation system mixes air in the cabins to create a uniform air temperature distribution that is great for thermal comfort. However, the mixing ventilation also enhances airborne contaminant transfer. Displacement ventilation has been proposed for use in cabins, but they may create high air temperature stratification and draft. This investigation developed an aisle displacement ventilation (ADV) system that can reduce air temperature stratification and be easily installed in cabins. By installing the system in a five-row, twin-aisle cabin mockup, our study found that ADV can create a low air velocity distribution in the cabin and can maintain an acceptable air temperature stratification without draft. The system created an uprising flow that can effectively remove airborne contaminant generated from respiratory activities. The experimental data were used to validate a computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) program. The validated CFD program was used to compare the ADV with the under-seat displacement ventilation (USDV) and the underfloor air distribution (UFAD) along the aisles. The ADV had better thermal comfort than the other two systems, but the cabin air quality of the three ventilation systems was similar.