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Numerical study of the influence of the atmospheric pressure on the thermal environment in the passenger cabin

  • Research Article
  • Indoor/Outdoor Airflow and Air Quality
  • Published:
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Abstract

The cabin air pressure remains lower than the horizontal atmospheric pressure when the airplane is in flight. Air pressure is one of the parameters that must be taken into consideration while studying the thermal environment of an airplane cabin. There are still no reference values for aircraft cabins despite the fact that numerous studies on low pressure heat transfer have demonstrated the connection between convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) and air pressure. In this paper, a correction method for CHTC under low pressure conditions was established by using the dummy heat dissipation in the low-pressure cabin experiment. On this basis, a thermal environment simulation model was developed, then was applied to the simulation of a seven-row aircraft cabin containing 42 passengers, and the CHTC and heat loss of dummy surface in the cabin were obtained. Finally, the results of PMV calculated by using heat dissipation and air parameters at sampling points were compared. The results show that the modified CHTC can accurately reflect the cabin thermal environment under low pressure conditions, and the correction of CHTC can be realized by adjusting the turbulent Prandtl number, which is nonlinear correlated with the pressure. The simulation results of the thermal environment in the seven-row cabin show that the CHTC changes by about 42% before and after modification. The air pressure decreases during take-off, which reduces the average CHTC of the crew surface from 5.09 W/(m2·K) to 4.56 W/(m2·K), but the air temperature rises by about 0.2 °C as a whole. The deviation of PMV results calculated by using simulated heat loss data and using air parameters of measuring points in space is up to 0.5, but the latter is representative for calculating the thermal comfort level of the whole cabin.

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Abbreviations

A 1 :

dummy surface area (m2)

A 2 :

low-pressure chamber surface area (m2)

C :

convective heat flux of dummy in the aircraft cabin (W/m2)

f cl :

area coefficient of human clothing

h 0 :

convective heat transfer coefficient under normal pressure (W/(m2·K))

h c :

convective heat transfer coefficient of dummy surface (W/(m2·K))

Le :

Lewis number of dummy surface

Le 0 :

Lewis number of dummy surface under normal pressure

M :

metabolism of human body (W/m2)

n :

exponent in equations

P :

pressure of cabin (kPa)

P 0 :

horizontal atmospheric pressure (kPa)

P a :

partial pressure of water vapor in air (Pa)

PMVC :

human thermal comfort index after low pressure correction

Pr t :

turbulent Prandtl number

q c :

convective heat flux of dummy in the low-pressure chamber (W/m2)

q in :

total heat flux of dummy in the low-pressure chamber (W/m2)

q r :

radiative heat flux of dummy in the low-pressure chamber (W/m2)

R :

radiative heat flux of dummy in the aircraft cabin (W/m2)

Re :

Reynolds number

S :

heat storage (W/m2)

t a :

mainstream air temperature (°C)

t b :

dummy surface temperature in the low-pressure chamber (°C)

t w :

wall temperature in the low-pressure chamber (°C)

T a :

aircraft cabin air temperature (°C)

T cl :

average temperature of human clothing (°C)

ΔT :

temperature difference between air and body surface (°c)

v :

air velocity (m/s)

W :

mechanical work (W/m2)

α :

evaporative heat transfer coefficient of dummy surface (W/(m2·Pa))

α 0 :

evaporative heat transfer coefficient under normal pressure (W/(m2·Pa))

ε 1 :

emissivity of the dummy

ε 2 :

emissivity of the chamber wall

ε s :

emissivity of the system

σ :

black-body radiation coefficient, 5.67×10−8 W/(m2·K4)

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Acknowledgements

The research presented in this paper was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51878442).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tianjin Key Lab. of Indoor Air Environmental Quality Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Xin Su, Yu Guo & Zhengwei Long

  2. Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute, Jinke Road, Pudong District, Shanghai, 201210, China

    Yi Cao

Authors
  1. Xin Su
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  2. Yu Guo
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  3. Zhengwei Long
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Xin Su, Yu Guo and Zhengwei Long. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xin Su, Zhengwei Long, Yi Cao and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhengwei Long.

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Su, X., Guo, Y., Long, Z. et al. Numerical study of the influence of the atmospheric pressure on the thermal environment in the passenger cabin. Build. Simul. 17, 253–265 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1064-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1064-7

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