Effect of nozzle air supply temperature and volume flowrate on the jet flow from a typical ventilation nozzle in aircraft cabins

Abstract

A ventilation nozzle’s airflow characteristics could have an influence on a passenger’s thermal comfort and dispersion of pollutants in an aircraft cabin, but there is little published research in this area. In this article, the temperature and air velocity from a nozzle jet were measured in a simulated three-row aircraft cabin at more than 220 points for both isothermal and non-isothermal jets. The non-isothermal jets were tested for air supply temperature differences of ± 5 and 10℃, and the isothermal jets for volume flowrates of 1.86 × 10−7, 2.67 × 10−7, and 4.03 × 10−7 m3/h. The results show that both the nozzle jet’s temperature and air velocity distributions are axially symmetrical and that the decay of the jet is rapid. The equation for the air velocity distribution was used to calculate the air velocity at any point in the main jet region for different volume flowrates. The temperature difference was shown to have little effect on the air velocity distribution for the main region of a nozzle jet, whereas the air flowrate was shown to significantly affect the air velocity distribution. This suggests that the effect of nozzle jet on passenger’s thermal comfort is mostly due to its air velocity distribution rather than temperature distribution.