Cabin environment

The Airplane Cabin Environment
Issues Pertaining to Flight Attendant Comfort
Elwood H. Hunt and David R. Space

Introduction conditioning packs located under the wing center section,
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the and mixed with an equal quantity of filtered recirculated conflicting information written recently on the subject of air. This is shown in figure 1, and is typical of modern cabin air quality by looking at the perceptions and facts of generation airplanes. Approximately 20 cubic feet per the cabin air as they are currently known. In addition, minute (cfm) of air per passenger is provided, of which half environmental issues and factors affecting in-flight service is filtered recirculated air and half is outside air. This results attendants and their comfort are addressed. in a complete cabin air exchange every two to three minutes
Many articles of late have been written on the subject of
(20 to 30 air changes per hour). The high air exchange rate cabin air quality, with the presumption that the quality of is necessary to control temperature gradients, prevent cabin air is dependent upon its source. That is, the air stagnant cold areas, maintain air quality and dissipate smoke reprocessed by nature, outside air, is “clean,” but the air and odors in the cabin. High outside airflow rates are also reprocessed by the aircraft environmental control system is necessary to maintain overall cabin temperature control and
“not clean.” Consequently, since newer model airplanes cabin pressurization. reprocess a portion of the cabin air, the general theme of these articles is
Cabin air ventilation: that the air supplied to the cabin is of
1 Outside air continuously enters engine where it is compressed.
3 Air from the mixing chamber is then supplied to the poor quality. The belief is that outside cabin from overhead outlets on a continuous basis.
It then passes through cooling packs to a mixing chamber.
air