Numerical Analysis of Airflow in Aircraft Cabins

Two three-dimensional cabin airflow configurations have been the subject of experimental and analytical testing to establish the validity and role of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in the design of cabin airflow distribution systems. The CFD tools considered here are two separate Navier-Stokes computer codes which have been used for a number of applications, including those in the present study. A correlative study of a detailed air supply nozzle configuration has been examined to further understand its flow characteristics and to establish a procedure for examining cases with large size scale differences. The comparison of experimental results with the numerical simulations in the two cases is generally quite good, leading to an increased confidence in the application of CFD methods within the cabin airflow distribution system design arena.