Airbus

Determining the Flow Characteristic in Cabin Air Outlet Channels.

Description of the company

Airbus is a global pioneer in the aerospace and defense industry, specializing in the design, manufacturing, and delivery of commercial aircraft, helicopters, space systems and defense technologies. With approximately 160,000 to 168,000 direct employees worldwide, Airbus is headquartered in Europe with major industrial hubs in France, Germany, Spain and the UK, the company operates across more than 180 locations worldwide. Known for driving cutting-edge innovation -such as zero-emission flight concepts and advanced satellite technology- Airbus consistently captures roughly half of all global commercial airliner orders.

Situation

The passenger cabin of commercial aircrafts consists of a cabin ventilation system. The ventilation system provides fresh air and temperature to control the cabin environment. The air is entering through cabin air outlets into the cabin. It is key that the supply air enters the cabin with a uniform flow distribution over the cabin length. For that purpose the air outlets require internal features, which guarantee such homogeneous flow distribution.

Problem

Former cabin air outlet designs rely mainly on flow guiding elements. They are establishing flow uniformity by the mechanism of kinetic energy and it is typically easier to deal with flow noise and its limits.
An alternative flow principle shall be applied, which rather uses static pressure energy to ensure homogeneous flow distribution. This principle is not necessarily in line with the acoustic requirements. Nevertheless, designing many parallel narrow long channels seems to be a good approach to cope with the noise inside the system. Previous tests revealed that the pressure resistance of these channels is very sensitive to the geometry of the channels and it requires predicting better the head loss with varying geometry of the channels. (Picture1: Example of the set of parallel flow channels - the flow channels are milled into a body and closed by a covering plate) 
(Picture2)

Aims of the project

The target is to build a prediction model of the head losses inside the flow channels for different geometries. The geometry is characterized by channel length, diameter and the inlet and outlet geometry. With that model it shall be eventually possible to break down the head losses into the elements of flow channel, inlet and outlet. That way it will be possible to design the channels to exact desired differential pressures.

Scopes

• A first step is to understand the physics of fluid dynamics inside flow channels.
• Definition of different geometries to come to a set of different configurations
• Build a first pressure loss model based on literature
• Build a refined (but simple) model with help of computational fluid dynamics (CFD e.g. with Open Foam)
• Compare analysis from literature with CFD results
• If feasible, design with CAD the configurations and 3D print them
• Perform a test with the 3D printed specimens and compare to the CFD results
• Build a design guideline for the channel geometry

(scope can be adapted according to accessibility to CFD simulation S/W, 3D-printer and test facilities, respectively potentially supported by Airbus facilities - to be discussed)

Target group (students)

Students, preferably master-students, who are interested in fluid mechanics and especially in doing first steps in Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation (CFD). It is also beneficial to have first skills in CAD design. Students interested in learning how to 3D print.

Dates
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Registration
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