In case of civil aviation, the environmental control system (ECS) consumes large amounts of energy, especially during long-range flights. Novel ventilation concepts offer the potential for energy savings by reconsidering the fresh air fraction. Besides energy saving benefits, the improvement of the thermal passenger comfort, air quality and simplified manufacturing processed are also possible using new concepts CleanSky2’s project ADVENT addressed this topic and aimed at enhanced ventilation concepts.
To evaluate alternative ventilation concepts regarding passenger’s comfort several criteria are studied focusing on enhanced heat removal efficiency, optimized local ventilation and air exchange efficiencies to improve the air quality and thus the passenger well-being. Considering the environmental aspect, alternative concepts with the possibility to save bleed air associated with reduced cooling demands promise energy savings. Several components of the ECS benefit from these new concepts resulting in smaller and lighter components. Additionally, a redesign of the ducting system promises weight savings and thus a lower fuel consumption.
The top-level objectives and the conclusions of the actions are:
1. Identification and benchmarking of novel ventilation concepts for modern long-range cabins using numerical simulations. To identify and verify new concepts, parametric studies were conducted experimentally and numerically. A simple “one-optimizing-all-challenges” ventilation concept was not found. However, single technology bricks were determined enhancing the performance of current knowledge and providing a scientific knowledge for upcoming aircraft configurations and module-integrated ventilation concepts as desired by the industry.
2. Deployment, set-up and testing of a ground-based, full-scale test facility (mock-up) for experimental simulations and studies of future long-range cabin ventilation concepts under realistic thermodynamically boundary conditions. Hereto, a test rig, representing a full-scale long-range cabin mock-up, was designed and setup. Special attention was given to the possibility to precisely define the thermal and fluid dynamical boundary conditions. The test facility is fully operational for EU research landscape and EU aviation industry and furthermore presented to the general audience, local politicians and journalists and highlighted in two films. A peer-reviewed journal publication with details on the new mock-up is gold-open access available DOI:10.1007/s13272-022-00594-2.
3. Provision of an experimental reference database of comfort-relevant parameters for different ventilation systems. Here, many results of the different ventilation concepts were summarized and evaluated in the published scientific publications, all open access available. In total, seven peer-reviewed contributions to conference proceedings and one peer-reviewed journal publication were published. Further information going beyond the published results are available upon request.
