Thermal environment around passengers in an aircraft cabin

Abstract

This investigation explored the numerical simulation method to predict thermal environment and heat transfer of passengers in the first-class cabin of an actual MD-82 commercial airliner on the ground through comparisons of experimental measurement data and numerical simulation results. The validated computational fluid dynamics model was then used to study passenger's thermal sensation in a newly designed aircraft cabin at 39,800 ft (12,131 m) cruise height in summer conditions. The convective heat transfer coefficient, predicted mean vote, and predicted percentage dissatisfied on the human body surfaces were analyzed and quantified. Both the measured data and simulation result showed that an approximation of 74.1% of heat loss from the human body surface was caused by convection heat transfer, which means that the ratio between convection and radiation was about 7:3 under the condition of this experiment. In the newly designed aircraft, the two passengers sitting in the aisle seats would feel cold with the predicted mean vote varying from −2.0 to −0.5 and predicted percentage dissatisfied varying from 60% to 30% due to the strong cold air supplied downward in the aisle region. The thermal environment around the human body inside the aircraft cabin during aircraft cruise height was a little colder than that in the ground condition mainly due to a lower inlet air temperature of 16.3°C (61.3 °F), as well as the convective heat transfer and draft due to the high air supply velocity magnitude.