Passenger Aircraft Cabin Ventilation – Investigations within the Do728 Research Facility

Abstract

The ventilation of passenger aircraft cabins as subsystem of the environmental control system directly effects the (thermal) passenger comfort and the air quality in the cabin. Additionally, the energy efficiency of the ventilation concept is the third major evaluation parameter. Within the triangle of ‘air quality’, ‘thermal comfort’ and ‘energy efficiency’ the optimal configuration for the specific cabin geometries. Furthermore, the robustness, the capability of integration and the enabling of modularization processes are additional evaluation parameter. In the present study, we introduce the Do728 passenger aircraft cabin as potential common research model. Moreover, we present the results of numerical and experimental investigations of two different ventilation concepts within this cabin geometry: Mixing Ventilation, which is state-of-the-art in all modern passenger aircraft and Cabin Displacement Ventilation as alternative concept. The results are discussed in terms of temperature and velocity distributions as well as with regard to the aerosol dispersion in the cabin.