Improving Thermal Comfort in Aircraft Cockpit Based on Optimization of Supply Air Grille

Abstract

Pilot’s thermal comfort and performance are directly affected by air flow field and temperature field in cockpit. A three-dimensional cockpit model of a certain civil aircraft is established, and the distribution of air velocity and temperature is obtained with the method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Aiming at the problems of high local air speed and uneven temperature distribution in the cockpit, two new supply air grilles are proposed. The results show that one of the grilles can obviously optimize air flow field and temperature in the cockpit and improve the thermal comfort of the pilots.