Airflow thermal simulation and comfort evaluation of commercial airliner

Air velocity field and temperature field of cockpit will affect the pilots' thermal comfort and performance directly, which are important parts need to be considered in the design of cockpit structure and environmental control system. After full-size three-dimensional model of B737-800 cockpit being established, a commercial computational fluid dynamics(CFD) software Fluent was used to calculate the flow field and temperature field of cockpit in high-altitude night work. Then the average temperature evaluation and the predicted mean vote(PMV)on the thermal sensation scale were used to evaluate cockpit temperature environment. A questionnaire was given to the pilot to obtain cockpit air flow and temperature comfort subjective evaluation. The results of simulation and subjective evaluation both indicate the B737-800 cockpit is a comfortable environment at night at high altitude. Besides, the trunk and legs feel a little uncomfortable as a result of slight coolness. The agreement of simulation results and evaluation results validates the accuracy of the cockpit airflow thermal simulation.