2D-PIV measurement of aircraft cabin air distribution with a high spatial resolution

Global airflow field distribution in a cabin mock-up measured via large-scale 2D-PIV

“…For all cross sections, the basic flow structure consisted of two large vortexes and four high Tu regions, but the locations of the two-jet collision regions and the relative flow asymmetries under the two tested conditions were random. Moreover, the previous conclusions regarding flow phenomena that were drawn based on observations from a single section [33] may not hold throughout the cabin, as indicated by the fact that the flow patterns under cooling conditions were not universally more symmetric than those under isothermal conditions and not all jet regions under cooling condition were larger than those under isothermal conditions. However, the previous conclusion that the airflow fields are more stable under cooling conditions was consistent with observations from some sections.…”

“…The air was exhausted from outlets on the side wall at floor level. Note that in contrast to the setup used in the previous study [33], to obtain a more ideal flow pattern in the mock-up, the air supply boundary conditions were modified to be more balanced in the Z direction by adjusting the honeycomb screens on both sides. The detailed air supply conditions are provided in Appendix 1.…”

“…No measurements are free from error, and PIV is no exception. In our previous study [33], both the systematic and statistical errors of the PIV measurements were analyzed. For this 2D PIV system, the systematic error was found to be approximately 1e2%, and the statistical error was found to be approximately 3e14.5%, corresponding to 0.9e0.1 m/s, based on 180 samples.…”

“…To optimize the trade-off among error, time consumption, coverage and resolution, the splicing of several flow-field subregions measured via high-spatialresolution PIV may be the most suitable method for obtaining global air distributions in large-scale environments such as aircraft cabins [32]. Using this method, we have previously performed a systematic experimental study to measure cross-sectional flow fields with high spatial resolution and reasonable accuracy [33]. However, for such a complex environment as the aircraft cabin, two-dimensional CFD models of the cross sections may not be suitable, as a consequence, to validate the whole-cabin threedimensional simulation results, not only the high-quality experimental data in cross sections, but also the data in horizontal and longitudinal sections are needed.…”

“…This paper is part of a series of studies with the intent of quantitatively evaluating the performance of various cabin air distribution systems. In a previous study [33], a high-spatialresolution airflow field in a single cross section was measured and analyzed. However, because the air distribution in transport vehicles such as airplanes is generally complex [34], the flow structures in different cross sections may vary, and therefore, it may not be possible to deduce the global flow pattern from only one cross section of the flow field.…”