Building and Environment 57 (2012) 97e109

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Building and Environment

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Insulation of commercial aircraft with an air stream barrier along fuselage

Tengfei (Tim) Zhang a, Linlin Tian a, Chao-Hsin Lin b, Shugang Wang a, *
a b

School of Civil Engineering, Dalian University of Technology (DUT), 2 Linggong Road, Dalian 116024, Liaoning, China Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Environmental Control System, Seattle, WA, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 7 February 2012 Received in revised form 2 April 2012 Accepted 20 April 2012 Keywords: Aircraft Insulation Air channel Asymmetric heat transfer Experiment CFD

a b s t r a c t
Modern commercial airplanes cruise at a high altitude where it is extremely cold. To withstand the cold atmosphere, the airplanes inner skin is covered by a layer of berglass insulation. However, this porous insulation material can entrap a large quantity of moisture after just a few months of an airplanes operation, resulting in weight increase, insulation degradation and various corrosions. This paper proposes to insulate an aircraft by an air stream barrier running through an annular channel along the cross section of the fuselage. Hot air is supplied to the channel entry at the lower lobe of the aircraft to heat the aircraft before it is nally delivered into the passenger cabin. As both channel surfaces are neither in uniform temperature nor uniform heat ux, the existent correlation formulas cannot be applied to fulll the insulation design. This investigation has applied a computational uid dynamics (CFD) program to model a two-dimensional aircraft section insulated by such an air channel. A partial aircraft cabin mockup is constructed and put to a psychrometric chamber that is conditioned to 19  C for experimental test. The results reveal the air channel is effective to insulate an airplane. The highly asymmetric temperature proles across the channel also lead to asymmetric velocity proles. In the near-window region of the passenger cabin, temperature is much elevated due to the channel, and thus cold sidewall and draft that have been repetitiously experienced by passengers seated near windows can be much alleviated. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Modern commercial airplanes cruise at a typical altitude of 11,000 m where the outside air temperature can be as low as 65  C [1]. To withstand the cold atmosphere, the aircraft fuselage is covered by insulation blankets in thickness of a couple of inches. As insulation blankets are commonly made of berglass, this porous material can entrap a large quantity of moisture especially when airplanes operate in humid regions. It is reported that the moisture gain in the insulation blankets of a conventional twinjet aircraft amounts a maximum weight of 680 kg, while trijet aircrafts may reach a maximum weight of 1089 kg [2]. A Boeing 747 airplane can gain thousands of pounds of extra weight after just a few months of revenue ights [3]. The acquired moisture soaks blankets, induces aircraft shell corrosion, degrades thermal insulation and noise reduction performance, etc. The increased expense is not just in extra fuel consumption, but also in corrosion repair and additional routine maintenance.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 411 8470 6407. E-mail address: sgwang@dlut.edu.cn (S. Wang). 0360-1323/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.04.013

Many efforts have been dedicated to improve aircraft insulation design. The insulation panel is proposed to be manufactured with better air tightness or just to supply some heated air directly into the insulation panel to vaporize the moisture [4]. Condensate drainage and water collection ducts or containment drainage bags [5] are also proposed for condensed water removal or storage. The above conceptual design may somehow lessen the moisture gain by the insulation but cannot extensively eliminate it. To thoroughly prevent moisture gain, dry air should be continuously delivered to displace the moisture out of the insulation element. As early as 1940s, a US engineer proposed the so-called insulating and ventilating air channel for rooms, compartments, aircraft cabins and the like for heat insulation and condensate moisture removal [6]. The hot dry air is ventilated through a double walled channel around the enclosures envelope. Later near the end of the last century, some engineers [2] designed the envelope ventilation structure for commercial airplanes. Hot air is supplied into the channel formed by the fuselage surface and the lining of the passenger cabin, to the upper collection duct or the overhead plenum. They claimed that no insulation blanket is needed since the air channel behaves as a heat insulation barrier. However, the above designs are just concepts disclosed in patent publications. There is no published literature which has reported the

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investigation of such air channels from the theoretical perspective. Our recent investigation [7] proposed to supply the outdoor air into a channel passage that is embedded within the cabin walls to the passenger cabin, without focusing on thermo uid performance of the air channel but instead on the created air distribution inside the cabin. Therefore there is still lack of fundamental analysis of heat transfer and ow inside the air channels that can aid to fulll the insulation design. To design an air channel for airplane insulation, some researches on ow and heat transfer within parallel plate channels can be referred. Depending on ow characteristics and surface boundary conditions, analytical, experimental and numerical solutions are carried out to obtain the correlations of convective heat transfer and ow resistance with the parallel plate channels. If the ow is laminar in the fully-developed regime, some correlations are provided in the textbook [8] for constant heat ux or surface temperature conditions. The analytical solution was shown being able to obtain the correlations when the laminar channel ow is exposed to asymmetric temperature and heat ux conditions, but the temperature or heat ux on each surface should be constant and uniform [9,10]. If the ow falls in the transitional to turbulent regime, a numerical solution or experimental test has to be implemented. The numerical modeling of transitional ow and turbulent ow has been carried out in [11,12], respectively. When subject to asymmetric wall temperature or heat uxes, the experimental studies of turbulent channel ow have also been reported [13,14]. In the above mentioned literatures, no research considers thermo ow in the entry region where it is still in the developing regime except [14]. In addition, all channel surfaces are maintained at either uniform heat ux or uniform surface temperature. However, such uniformity does not exist in a channel passage along the aircraft fuselage. This is because during cruise the outdoor temperature is relatively xed, but the air temperature within the channel decreases along the streamwise direction. The temperature difference between the air stream and the channel walls varies along the ow path. This makes it hard to maintain either uniform heat ux or uniform temperature on both channel surface walls. The above review reveals there is a big potential to improve aircraft insulation by an air channel. However, the current available thermo-ow correlations are still incomplete to appropriately design such an insulation system. The channel ow to form an air barrier can be laminar, transitional or turbulent depending on speed of the supply air. Thermal boundary conditions on both channel surfaces are neither uniform heat ux nor uniform temperature. The thermo ow in the channel entry is in the developing regime that is highly different from that in the fully-developed regime. This implies that either a numerical solution or an experimental test must be applied to investigate such complicated channel ow. This paper presents an investigation of the thermo ow in a channel passage along the cross section of fuselage by computational uid dynamics (CFD) and experimental test. An appropriate design of the air channel to insulate a single-aisle commercial aircraft is outlined. As a series of study to reduce moisture accumulation on airplanes, the thermo-ow performance of the air channel is reported rst in this paper, followed by moisture transfer modeling in our subsequent publications. 2. Modeling of an air channel along the cross section of a fuselage 2.1. Design and modeling of a crusing aircraft with an air channel insulation In order to insulate an airplane and minimize moisture accumulation in the porous blankets, a channel passage along a single-

aisle aircrafts envelope is designed as shown in Fig. 1(a). The air channel is formed by the insulation panel surface in the outer side and the cabin lining surface in the inner side. The mixed air from the manifold is discharged into the channel passage from the longitudinal air supply ducts located at the lower lobe of the aircraft. After sweeping through the insulation panels, the cooled air is delivered into the passenger cabin via the overhead linear slot diffusers. The air circulates in the cabin and hence dilutes the contamination therein and removes heat dissipated by passengers and electric appliances. There are air exhaust grilles on the deck near the window side, which extract air from the cabin to the cargo hold below the oor. In this study, the discharged air also circulates in the cargo compartment and keeps it in a warm status. Finally, the air is collected by the longitudinal air return duct for further recycling use or being dumped overboard. For simplicity, a half two-dimensional aircraft section as shown in Fig. 1(b) is selected for numerical modeling. In the middle of the aircraft the symmetric boundary condition is assumed to be valid. There are three passengers seated in each side of the cabin represented by simplied thermal manikins. The manikin surface temperature is set to 30  C, supposing they are exposed to a comfortable air temperature of around 24  C. The cargo compartment is empty. To evaluate the role of berglass insulation to the thermal status of the aircraft, three cases as shown in Table 1 are designed by varying insulation thickness and air supply temperature. The insulation thickness is 5 cm in Case 1, which corresponds to the typical situation on an actual airplane. The

Fig. 1. An air channel along the cross section of fuselage to insulate an aircraft: (a) schematics of system design, (b) a half geometric model for CFD simulation.

T. Zhang et al. / Building and Environment 57 (2012) 97e109 Table 1 Case design and boundary conditions. Item Fiberglass insulation thickness (cm) Heat conduction coefcient of berglass insulation (W/(m K)) Air supply temperature at the channel entry ( C) Air supply rate per person (l/s) Air supply turbulence intensity Air channel width (cm) Shell thickness (cm) Heat conduction coefcient of shell material (W/(m K)) Lining layer thickness (cm) Deck thickness (cm) Heat conduction coefcient of lining layer and deck (W/(m K)) Surface temperature of passenger bodies ( C) External convective heat transfer coefcient during ight (W/(m2 K)) Outdoor static air temperature at the cruise altitude ( C) Mean radiant temperature of the sky at the cruise altitude ( C) Emissivity of the outer shell skin surface Case 1 5 Case 2 1 0.04 57 10 10% 4 1.2 155 0.3 2 0.03 30 332.47 65 121 0.92 Case 3 0

99

30

167.85

where r is the recovery factor in turbulent boundary layer, k is ratio of specic heats for air, M is airplane Mach number. By integrating Eq. (1) and averaging on the whole fuselage length, the averaged external convective heat transfer coefcient can be obtained. Suppose an airplane cruises at a Mach number of 0.8 whose length is 40 m, the external convective heat transfer coefcient is determined to be 332.47 W/(m2 K) by integrating Eq. (1) with the Matlab software. The external radiation heat transfer to the outside can be meaningful at the cruise altitude. Consider the extreme case when an airplane ies in the nighttime, so the solar radiation is eliminated. The radiative heat loss to the sky by a gray body is,

  4 4 qRad 3 s Tskin Tsky

(6)

insulation is reduced to 1 cm in Case 2, until it is completely eliminated in Case 3. Suppose each passenger is provided a mixture of outdoor air and cabin recirculated air at 10 l/s, which corresponds to a supply air speed of 0.94 m/s at the channel entry, if the pitch of passenger seats is 0.8 m. To maintain a comfortable condition in the passenger cabin, the supply air temperature at the channel entry shall be increased gradually when thinning insulation thickness. The supply air temperature provided in Table 1 was inversely determined to acquire the targeted air temperature of 24e25  C in the occupied zone of the cabin. At a typical cruise altitude of nine to 12 km above sea level, the static outdoor air temperature can be as low as 65  C. The heat loss from an aircraft includes convection heat transfer with the free air and radiation heat transfer to the sky. To estimate the external convective heat transfer coefcient during ight, the correlation formula recommended by the ASHRAE handbook [15] is adopted in this study, which is obtained from the analogy with a at plate.

where qRad is radiative heat loss ux, 3 is emissivity of the outer shell skin, Tskin is skin surface temperature, and Tsky is the mean radiant temperature of the sky. The shell skin is painted to resist erosion and also for esthetics, and its emissivity is around 0.92 for various paints. At a cruising altitude of nine to 11 km above sea level, the sky temperature is about 56 K lower than the free static air temperature [15]. In CFD modeling the thermal boundary condition on the outer shell skin is set as the combination of heat convection with free air and radiation to the sky. The detailed boundary parameters are provided in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, parameters including external convective heat transfer coefcient, outdoor static air temperature, mean radiant temperature of the sky and emissivity of the outer shell skin, shall be specied to CFD modeling as boundary conditions. The outer shell skin temperature can then be solved according to the heat loss to the outdoor by heat convection and thermal radiation (Eq. (6)). 2.2. CFD solution method The geometry as shown in Fig. 1(b) is created by a commercial CFD preprocessing software GAMBIT (version 2.3.16) and suitable grid meshes are generated as summarized in Table 2. The quadrilateral meshes are created by both submap and pave meshing schemes. To appropriately capture the near-wall effect within the boundary layer, highly non-uniform grid sizes are employed in the air channel. The location with the smallest cell size lies in the nearwall region of the air channel where y is far smaller than 5, so velocity distribution in the viscous sublayer can be well represented. Fig. 2 shows the spacial distribution of CFD grids in a small part of the solution domain. The total grid cell numbers are 588 k, 595 k and 590 k in Case 1, 2 and 3, respectively. In order to appropriately model heat transfer in the air channel, energy transport in both the solid and uid domains is coupled for solution. The solid domain includes aircraft shell, insulation blanket and lining layer. Although the insulation blanket is porous, it is treated as pure solid for energy modeling. The blanket is assumed to be in good contact with the shell. Both ow and heat transfer shall be solved in the uid domain, which consists of air channel,

hx rcp u 0:185log10 Rex 2:584 Pr2=3 < Rex < 109 Rex

when 107

(1)

rux m

(2)

where hx is the local convective heat transfer coefcient at a distance x along the fuselage from nose, r is air density, cp is specic heat of air at constant pressure, u is airplane speed, Rex is the local Reynolds number at position x, m is dynamic viscosity of air. The overboard ambient air properties during ight are evaluated at the characteristic temperature T*,

T*

TAW TN 0:22TAW TN 2

(3)

where TAW is the adiabatic wall temperature (or recovery temperature) on the outer fuselage, which should be higher than the ambient static air temperature TN due to ram effect during ight. The adiabatic wall temperature can be evaluated as,

Table 2 Grid size information in the CFD simulation. Cell width (cm) Shell Insulation (Cases 1 and 2) Air channel Lining layer Deck, passenger cabin and cargo hold 0.24 0.2 0.02e0.2 0.05 0.4 Cell height (cm) 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 Meshing scheme Submap Submap Submap Submap Pave

TAW

  k1 2 TN 1 r M 2

(4) (5)

r Pr1=3

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The discretization scheme for momentum, turbulence and energy is of the second-order upwind type. To better capture the natural convection ow inside the cabin space, the pressure staggering option (PRESTO) scheme is employed for pressure interpolation. The pressure and velocity is nally coupled by the SIMPLE algorithm. The continuity and momentum equations are thought to reach convergence when the ratio of the sum of the mass gain and loss on all boundaries to the overall mass gain in the aircraft is less than 1.0ee6. In a similar method the convergent ratio limit for energy is 3.0ee3. The commercial CFD software, FLUENT (version 6.3.26), is applied to conduct the simulation work. The computational job is executed on a personal computer with a 2.67-GHz Intel CPU and 3.25 GB memory. It took around 76, 78 and 75 h for Case 1, 2 and 3, respectively, to obtain the convergent results.
Fig. 2. CFD grid distribution across a part of the air channel in case 2.

3. Validation of numerical modeling in a stationary mockup There are a number of assumptions in the RANS CFD modeling, which may result in solution uncertainty and even errors if inappropriate modeling strategies are employed. Though the RANS CFD modeling is widely veried in a large quantity of publications, it is still necessary to validate the CFD operators because highly skilled technique and plentiful experience is needed. In addition, there is rare publication that has reported the coupled modeling of energy transport between the solid and uid domains in indoor environment. 3.1. Experimental test In order to obtain the measurement data to validate against the proposed modeling strategies, a full scale mockup of a partial aircraft cabin section as shown in Fig. 3 was constructed. The cabin has a height of 1.6 m, length of 0.8 m and maximum width of 0.8 m. The outer shell is painted to have a similar emissivity with that on an actual airplane. The shell is of a thickness of 1.2 cm. Neighboring to the inner shell skin, a 5 cm berglass layer is mounted against a metal screen to form a parallel channel with a width of 4 cm between the insulation and the lining surface. A cross-ow fan attached to the mockup drives air passing around the heating element of an electric heater, through which air is tempered to the specied temperature. There is a honeycomb ow stabilizer in the bottom horizontal ow path to reduce ow turbulence. The supplied air speed at the channel entry (just after the honeycomb ow stabilizer) is 1.16 m/s, which generates a maximum velocity in the vertical air channel nearly twice of those in the cases presented in Table 1. Inside the compartment, lighting bulbs are installed to maintain the space at around 24  C, which is in purpose to mimic

passenger cabin and cargo hold. The thermo-ow governing equations can be casted into the general scalar format as,

v v v ruj f rf vt vx j vxj

vf Gf;eff vx j

! Sf (7)

where r is air density, f is a scalar variable, t is time, uj is a velocity component in three directions (xj, j 1,2,3) of a Cartesian coordinate system, Gf;eff is the effective diffusion coefcient, Sf is the source term. By varying f, the above equation can represent the continuity, momentum, energy and turbulence governing equations, respectively. Inside the aircraft cabin, ows are generally turbulent. The Reynolds number in the air channel is also greater than the critical threshold of 2300. An economical approach to model ow turbulence is by solving the Reynolds-averaged NaviereStokes (RANS) equations. Many eddy-viscosity turbulence models are available to enclose the RANS equations, which can compromise between accuracy and expense. The enhanced wall treatment is activated to adopt the two-layer turbulence models, in which the uid domain is divided into a fully turbulent region and a viscosity-affected p region (Rey hry k=m < 200). In the fully turbulent region, the RNG ke3 model proposed by Yakhot et al. [16] is adopted for turbulence effect approximation. However in the viscosity-affected region, the one-equation model [17] is employed. At least 10 CFD cells within the viscosity-affected near-wall region must be deployed to be able to resolve the mean velocity and turbulent quantity change, and the rst grid cell should fall within the viscous sublayer (y < 5). For more details on the enhanced wall treatment the readers can refer to the FLUENT documentation [18].

Fig. 3. A partial aircraft cabin mockup for experimental test: (a) front view of the test rig; (b) backward view of the test rig; (c) schematics of the cabin structure in sectional view.

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Fig. 4. The psychrometric chambers for experimental test: (a) outside view; (b) interior view.

the similar temperature condition on airplane. A fan is placed on the oor to promote mixing of the inside air. During test the whole cabin mockup is put into a psychrometric chamber (Fig. 4) that is conditioned to around 19  C. As shown in Fig. 4(b), there is a set of fans in the ceiling corner of the chamber that blow cold air to sweep the outer shell surface of the cabin mockup. The driven air speed can reach a maximum of 12 m/s, so air inside the chamber is well mixed. The cross-ow fan attached to the mockup extracts the cold air from the chamber directly into the air channel after being heated to appropriate temperature. Other envelope surfaces of the mockup are covered by insulation foam to reduce heat loss to the chamber. The velocity and temperature proles within the air channel and discrete temperatures on the outer shell surface and lining walls are measured. The instrument to measure velocity proles is a portable thermo anemometer (type VT50; Kimo, France), which has two measuring ranges: 0e3 m/s and 3e30 m/s. In the range of 0e3 m/s that is used in the test, the resolution is 0.01 m/s with an uncertainty of (3% reading 0.06) m/s. The sensing element for temperature measurement is Pt 100 resistance probe wires, whose voltages are read by a data logger (model 2700; Keithley Instrument, USA). Before conducting measurements, the temperature sensing device is calibrated by a standard mercury thermometer in a water bath. The resolution of the Pt 100 measurement device is 0.01  C and the accuracy is shown ranging from 0.55  C to 0.26  C. 3.2. CFD modeling of the validation case After the experimental test, the air movement within the channel and heat transfer in the shell, insulation and air channel is

modeled by CFD. Fig. 5 illustrates the created geometry model. Only the air channel, insulation and shell are included in the solution domain. Except for the bottom horizontal part of the channel which spans 8 cm, the width of the rest channel is 4 cm everywhere. The surfaces of the horizontal channel sections are treated as adiabatic for simplicity because they are all covered by insulation foam in a thickness of 2 cm. Nevertheless, the horizontal channel section possesses only a small part as compared to the whole channel ow path. The third kind of boundary condition is specied to the outer shell skin and the inner lining surfaces. In addition, the thermal radiation is activated on the outer shell surface, so the combined convection and radiation heat transfer boundary conditions are specied to the outer shell surface. Tables 3 and 4 summarize the thermal boundary conditions adopted on the outer shell surface and inner lining surface, respectively. Because non-uniform thermo-ow conditions appear on the outer shell and inner lining surfaces, both surfaces are divided into nearly identical six sections to reect such difference. In the chamber, the cold air from the ceiling fans impinges the shell surface between She2 and She3 as shown in Fig. 5, which results in a maximum convective heat transfer coefcient on these two surfaces. The convective heat transfer coefcient is gradually reduced toward to either the top or bottom sections. These convective heat transfer coefcients are estimated by the correlation formula for laminar ow when sweeping a at plate [8]. The background mean radiant temperatures are also specied to the outer shell surface, which are estimated based on the measured inner wall surface temperatures of the psychrometric chamber and the corresponding view angles with the shell. Inside the compartment, a fan is placed on the oor to mix the air therein. Along the

Fig. 5. Geometry model of an air channel used in the numerical modeling validation and a part of the CFD grid distribution.

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Table 3 Thermal boundary conditions for the outer shell surface of the cabin mockup. Section She1 She2 She3 She4 She5 She6

7.03 16.96 16.96 7.03 5.39 4.55 External convective heat transfer coefcient 2 (W/m K) 19.1 18.98 18.92 18.84 18.87 18.87 External main stream air temperature ( C) External mean radiant 16.7 16.84 16.93 16.98 17.1 17.1 temperature ( C)

Table 4 Thermal boundary condition for the inner lining surface of the cabin mockup. Section External convective heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K) External main stream air temperature ( C) LLe1 1.52 LLe2 1.94 LLe3 2.29 LLe4 2.91 LLe5 4.06 LLe6 10.37

24

generated air stream on the inner lining surface, convective heat transfer coefcients decrease with height (Table 4). As the same to those described in the previous section, the RNG ke3 turbulence model with the enhanced wall treatment is adopted. The generated CFD grid shape and size (Fig. 5) in the shell, insulation, channel and lining are similar to those outlined in Table 2. The total grid number is 96 k. 3.3. Result comparison between CFD simulation and measurement Fig. 6 presents comparison of air speed proles within the vertical channel at different heights. At H 0.02 m, which is at the

corner between the horizontal and vertical sections of the channel, the ow is highly non-uniform. This is because vortexes are generated in the corner and most of the air is thrown toward to the outer channel surface when the ow changes its direction. With increase of height, ow proles become more and more at and thus ow is more uniform across the channel width. The CFD under predicts the maximum velocity at H 0.02 m. However, the agreement is generally quite good at other positions, which shows the CFD has captured good velocity proles in the channel passage. Fig. 7 compares temperatures between the CFD and measurement at many points inside the cabin mockup. On the outer shell, measured surface temperatures are generally higher than the ambient air by 1.5e5  C. The surface temperature is highly nonuniform along the height. The higher temperature at the bottom part is because of a smaller convective heat transfer coefcient when impinged air approaches the ground. The surface temperature of the chamber oor is also higher than those on vertical walls and ceiling during the test, which exchanges more heat to the bottom part of the mockup by radiation. The CFD over predicts temperatures at the top part but under predicts temperature at the bottom part. The over prediction is because all Pt 100 resistance probes are just attached to the solid shell surface without being implanted into the shell body, which provides lower surface temperature than the actual situation. Due to overexposure of the probes into the ambient air, the sensed temperature indicates the combined temperature between the shell surface and the surrounding colder air. The temperature under prediction at the bottom part is because there is heat loss in the -X direction (see Fig. 3(b)) by the structural frame from the cabin inside to the outer shell, which is not taken into account by the numerical modeling. Inside the air channel, the air stream is slightly cooled down after passing the vertical channel. This shows the berglass layer

Fig. 6. Comparison of air speed proles within the vertical channel at different heights, symbols for measurement and lines for CFD: (a) at H 0.02 m; (b) at H 0.54 m; (c) at H 0.8 m; (d) at H 1.06 m.

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Fig. 7. Comparison of discrete temperatures ( C) between the measurement and CFD modeling inside the partial cabin mockup.

provides good thermal insulation. The CFD simulation obtains more or less the same temperatures with those provided by the measurement. At the bottom part along the lining layer, air stream temperature inside the channel is a little hotter than the cabin inside, so there is a small amount of heat transferring to the cabin inside. However with air cooled down at the top part, the cabin inside is warmer than the air stream within the channel, and hence heat transfer direction is reversed. The general comparison shows that the CFD model has provided results that are comparable to the measurement. 4. Parametric study results and discussion In this section, ow and temperature distribution inside the passenger cabin and cargo hold are discussed rst, and then focus is put to the air channel for analysis of convection heat transfer therein. These results are used to evaluate the parametric design as shown in Table 1 for an air channel insulation system. 4.1. Temperature distribution inside the passenger cabin and cargo hold Regardless of any insulation design, it shall assure comfortable temperature conditions in the passenger cabin and also shall be suitable for luggage storage in the cargo compartment. Fig. 8 presents the temperature distribution for each case when insulation thickness varies. The designed average temperature in the occupied zone is around 24e25  C. Temperature distribution is generally quite uniform except for the region near the central overhead ceiling. The emerged low temperature below the central ceiling is due to cool air supplied from the diffusers. There is also a vortex generated in this region as shown in Fig. 9, which prevents

Fig. 8. Temperature distribution on the airplane: (a) case 1 for a berglass insulation thickness of 5 cm; (b) case 2 for a thickness of 1 cm; (c) in the passenger cabin for case 3 without berglass insulation; (d) in the cargo hold for case 3.

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Fig. 9. Flow distribution in the aircraft: (a) case 1 (berglass insulation thickness: 5 cm); (b) case 2 (berglass insulation thickness: 1 cm); (c) case 3 (without berglass insulation). Table 5 Heat balance of the aircraft. Case 1 Averaged air supply temperature at the diffuser ( C) Heat release by passengers (W) Heat release by the inner lining surface to the passenger cabin (W) Heat transfer from the cargo hold to the passenger cabin through the deck (W) Average discharged air temperature to the cargo hold ( C) Heat release by the inner lining surface to the cargo hold (W) Air return temperature in the cargo hold ( C) 21.26 129.75 5.81 0.32 24.62 17.52 25.09 Case 2 20.84 125.36 17.21 1.73 24.81 108.48 27.73 Case 3 17.62 143.95 98.10 8.14 24.35 439.83 36.43

hot air circulating into this part. Though Table 5 provides the averaged air temperature at the diffuser, the jet streams layer by layer discharged out from the diffuser do not hold uniform temperature. This is because asymmetric boundary conditions are formed on the parallel channel surfaces. The outer channel surface is colder than the inner surface due to heat loss to the cold ambient outside. The asymmetric status is even severe for Case 3 in which no berglass insulation is installed. More details on convective heat transfer within the channel are to be discussed in the next section. The heat balance inside the passenger cabin and cargo hold is summarized in Table 5. Note in Table 5, different heat generation rates by thermal manikins are computed in the three cases. This is because identical manikin surface temperature is specied but air supply temperature from the diffusers varies case by case. In Case 1, even with 5 cm berglass insulation, there is a small amount of heat loss from the passenger cabin to the channel as the channel is maintained at relatively low temperature. With increase of supplied air temperature at the channel entry in Case 2 and Case 3, hot air within the channel heats the aircraft. This shows the air channel is extremely helpful for keeping the passenger cabin in

a comfortable status, especially for the near-window region. On current airplanes, cold sidewall and draft have long been repetitiously experienced [7,19,20] especially by the passengers seated neighboring to windows. However with the proposed air channel, temperature in the near-window region can be much elevated and thus cold sidewall and draft complaints can be minimized. Temperatures in the cargo hold as shown in Fig. 8 are quite different in these three cases. It can be found that the averaged temperature in the cargo hold increases with the air supply temperature at the channel entry. Though temperatures of discharged air from the passenger cabin to the cargo compartment are nearly identical, the heat transfer rate from the channel passage to the cargo hold (as shown in Table 6) increases sharply with rise of air supply temperature at the channel entry. In Case 3, the averaged temperature in the cargo hold is higher than those in Case 1 and Case 2 by nearly 10  C. An interesting phenomenon in Case 3 is that the ow pattern in the cargo hold is reversed when the channel passage is maintained at high temperature, which is unlike those in Cases 1 and 2. The ow in Case 3 goes clockwise due to thermal buoyancy generated by the hot lining surface. The above results conclude it is possible to insulate an aircraft with an air stream barrier. However, if no berglass insulation is installed to the shell side, hot air must be supplied at the channel entry, which may lead overheating in the cargo hold (like Case 3). In such consequence, the cargo hold may have to be insulated by a berglass layer to prevent high temperature therein.

Table 6 Heat balance of the air channel. Case 1 Air supply temperature at the channel entry ( C) Heat loss to the interior aircraft through the lining surface (W) Heat loss to the outside through shell (W) Discharged air temperature at the diffuser ( C) 30 11.67 293.21 21.26 Case 2 57 125.69 1170.67 20.84 Case 3 167.85 535.29 4867.47 17.62

Fig. 10. Schematics of different positions to show velocity and temperature proles within the air channel.

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4.2. Heat transfer analysis of the air channel Lets focus on heat transfer in the channel passage. Table 6 provides the overall energy balance in the air channel. With decrease of insulation thickness and increase of air supply temperature at the channel entry, the heat loss to both the interior aircraft and the outdoor space increases remarkably. From Case 1 to Case 3, the averaged temperature at the channel exit decreases. Since airplanes cruise in the cold atmosphere, the channel passage is effective to cool down the hot supplied air, especially when there is no berglass insulation installed to the shell side. The air channel can thus be applied to cool down a part of engine bleed air that is nally delivered to the passenger cabin. Consequently, the designed air temperature leaving the manifold can be much higher than that found on current airplanes, but the air can still be effectively cooled

down by the channel passage. The energy that was originally consumed to cool down the engine bleed air can be saved, so the ECS can work more energy-efciently. To illustrate velocity and temperature proles within the air channel, we select ve different positions along the channel passage as shown in Fig. 10. P1 is just behind the channel entry and P5 is close to the channel exit. Fig. 11 shows both the velocity and temperature proles at these ve positions for Case 1 (berglass insulation thickness: 5 cm). The horizontal coordinate is the position along the radial direction across the channel width, in which the origin of the coordinate is located at the outer shell surface. Air speed within the channel can be read from the left vertical coordinate, and only the speed within the channel is presented. To well represent temperature change across the airplanes envelope, temperature proles are plotted from the outer shell surface, across

Fig. 11. Velocity and temperature proles across the air channel for case 1 (berglass insulation thickness: 5 cm), left vertical coordinate for air speed, right vertical coordinate for temperature: (a) at P1; (b) at P2; (c) at P3; (d) at P4; (e) at P5 (acronym, ST: shell thickness, IT: insulation thickness, ACW: air channel width, LT: lining thickness).

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the berglass insulation layer and air channel until the nearboundary region inside the aircraft cabin. The temperature values can be read from the right vertical coordinate. Since P1 is just behind the channel entry, both velocity and temperature proles are quite at except for the near-wall region within the channel. The velocity proles in these ve positions are nearly symmetric across the channel. At P1, P2 and P3, air temperature within the channel is slightly higher than the inside cabin, so there is a small amount of heat transferred to the cabin. However at P4 and P5, heat transfer direction reverses with air cooled down in the channel. But the heat loss rate to the channel is quite small, so there is no problem to keep the passenger cabin in a comfortable condition. If the insulation thickness reduces to 1 cm (Case 2), the shape of velocity proles as shown in Fig. 12 is somewhat different from that

shown in Case 1. The velocity proles within the channel at P2 to P5 are no more perfectly symmetric. The position where peak velocity appears, shifts to the inner side (right side in the gure) of the channel because of highly different temperature presented on channel surfaces. As the air near the outer channel surface is at much lower temperature, the air density increases. The main air stream must overcome the denser air near the outer channel surface, so the uid motion near the outer surface slows down quickly. However, there is no big difference for temperature between the air stream and the inner channel surface. Therefore it is not surprising that the peak velocity shifts to the inner side. Since P4, the outer channel surface temperature already drops below the freezing point, but the inner channel surface is still maintained at high temperature. On beneting from the hot air stream barrier

Fig. 12. Velocity and temperature proles across the air channel for case 2 (berglass insulation thickness: 1 cm), left vertical coordinate for air speed, right vertical coordinate for temperature: (a) at P1; (b) at P2; (c) at P3; (d) at P4; (e) at P5 (acronym, ST: shell thickness, IT: insulation thickness, ACW: air channel width, LT: lining thickness).

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near the lining surface, the inside aircraft cabin can be kept at a warm status. This shows the channel passage is effective to insulate the aircraft. With no berglass insulation applied in Case 3, the air within the channel sweeps the shell surface directly. Fig. 13 shows velocity and temperature proles. Due to large difference of temperature between the air stream and the outer channel surface (i.e., the inner shell surface), velocity proles since P2 are highly asymmetric. The peak velocity quickly shifts to the inner channel surface (to the right in the gures). However, at P4 and P5 the position where peak velocity appears shifts a little back to the cold outer channel surface. The underlying reason is that the temperature difference between the surface and main air stream decreases with air cooled down along the streamwise direction. After P4, the ow also changes direction in the curved passage from X direction to X

direction. The presented highly asymmetric air temperatures across the channel vary layer by layer. The whole outer channel surface is far below the freezing point. Fortunately, the air stream layer neighboring to the inner channel surface is kept hot, so it can still heat the aircraft. Fig. 14 presents the convective heat transfer coefcients on the cold outer channel surface along the streamwise direction. The formula to calculate the convective heat transfer coefcient is,

hx

qx Tb;x Tw;x

(8)

where qx is the local surface heat ux by convection heat transfer, Tb,x is the bulk uid temperature within the channel, Tw,x is the local channel surface temperature. From the gure it can be seen the local convective heat transfer coefcient decreases sharply in the

Fig. 13. Velocity and temperature proles across the air channel for case 3 (no berglass insulation attached to the shell), left vertical coordinate for air speed, right vertical coordinate for temperature: (a) at P1; (b) at P2; (c) at P3; (d) at P4; (e) at P5 (acronym, ST: shell thickness, IT: insulation thickness, ACW: air channel width, LT: lining thickness).

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the fuselage. The air channel behaves as a heat exchanger to cool down the hot supply air that is nally delivered into the passenger cabin and also heats the cabin. After a careful analysis of the system by experimental test and CFD modeling, major ndings and conclusions are: 1. The experimental test in a partial aircraft cabin mockup that is exposed to 19  C in a psychrometric chamber shows that the CFD modeling is able to accurately predict both velocity and temperature proles across the air stream barrier. It is valid to specify combined convection and radiation heat transfer boundary condition to the outer shell surface of an aircraft in modeling. 2. The simulation of a cruising aircraft section in the nighttime shows the air channel is effective to insulate an airplane. In the near-window region of the passenger cabin, temperature is much elevated due to the channel passage. The cold sidewall and draft complaints especially for passengers seated neighboring to windows can be much alleviated using this system. 3. When thinning berglass insulation to the shell side, air supply temperature at the channel entry must be increased to assure air delivered into the passenger cabin with suitable temperature. If there is no berglass insulation to the shell side, very hot air must be supplied at the channel entry. However, this may lead overheating of the cargo hold. Consequently, the cargo compartment may have to be insulated by a berglass layer to prevent from being overheated. 4. The highly asymmetric temperature proles across the channel also lead to asymmetric velocity proles. Near the cold channel surface air density increases remarkably, which suppresses upward motion of the air stream and results to shifting of peak velocity toward to the high-temperature surface. 5. Many factors co-contribute to the convective heat transfer within the channel. If there is large difference of temperature between both channel surfaces, the turbulence tends to be promoted and hence the convective heat transfer is enhanced. However, the varying trend of convective heat transfer with the streamwise distance is very hard to predict. One may have to apply CFD to assist the air channel design to insulate an airplane.

Fig. 14. Calculated convective heat transfer coefcient on the outer channel surface versus the streamwise distance from the channel entry (acronym, IT: insulation thickness).

entry region. This is because of the quick increase of boundary layer thickness. Since S 0.3 m, the varying trends of convective heat transfer coefcients with streamwise distance are quite different. For Case 1 whose temperature difference between the both channel surfaces is the smallest, the convective heat transfer coefcient decreases gradually. This is due to the increase of boundary layer thickness when ow advancing. It seems the completely fullydeveloped condition has not reached. When the insulation thickness is reduced to 1 cm in Case 2, convection heat transfer is enhanced due to turbulence effect. The cold surface induces larger air density nearby, which suppresses the upward motion of uid. The ow tends to be easier to shift into turbulence when the uid motion is suppressed near the cold surface within the channel. The larger temperature difference between the both channel surfaces, the more turbulent ow is found inside the channel, and thus more active convection heat transfer is presented especially in Case 3. Such is consistent with the ndings in the parallel plate ows [14], in which the buoyancy-opposed ow is concluded promoting turbulence. It shall point out many factors co-contribute to the convective heat transfer inside the channel. At the channel entry, turbulent ow is supplied in at an intensity of 10%. However, the both surfaces are just separated in 4 cm, so the uid motion is highly susceptible to the damp effect of the no-slip solid boundary. If there is large temperature difference between both opposing surfaces, the uid near the cold surface becomes denser and the gravity hinders the upward ow motion. The ow turbulence tends to be promoted in the buoyancy-opposed ow. However, the buoyancyopposed effect reduces if surface temperature difference decreases when air is cooled down in the end of ow path. In addition, the ow changes direction in the curved channel passage. Below Y 2 m (Fig. 10), the ow goes to X direction, but it changes to X direction when Y > 2 m. The above multiple factors are coupled together, which make the varying trend of convective heat transfer coefcient very complicated. There is no way to obtain plentiful heat transfer information inside the channel other than CFD modeling. Therefore, it is recommended to apply CFD modeling to study the channel ow when there is large difference in surface temperatures, especially in case non-uniform thermal boundary conditions exist on both channel surfaces. 5. Conclusions This paper proposes to insulate an aircraft by an air stream barrier within a channel passage running along the cross section of

Acknowledgments The work presented in this paper is in part to fulll the research project of the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (the 973 Program) through grant No. 2012CB720100.

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