Indoor climate quality assessment in civil aircraft cabins: A field study

Indoor Climate Quality is the way to assess how much thermal and indoor air quality conditions might influence people's comfort indoors. Passengers traveling on commercial airplanes are increasingly demanding comfort inside the cabin. So, creating a comfortable environment is a relevant requirement to be considered. Although indoor climate standards cover mainly buildings, other indoor environments may use the same concepts. This study aimed to present a multiprobe device for indoor climate quality assessment and a methodology to cate-gorize thermal comfort and indoor air quality levels in twenty-five flights between 2019 and the beginning of 2020. Data were collected in two distinct seasons, Heating and Cooling, regarding the mode of use of HVAC systems, depending on the predominant passengers' clothing set, for different aircraft types and routes. It was analyzed how much thermal comfort and indoor air quality parameters are in accordance with the categories established in the EN 16798-1 standard. As the main findings, it can be concluded that the environmental pa-rameters analyzed on flights were mostly within the comfort range. However, there is a possibility of improvement in thermal comfort since the predominance of values in the best comfort category is still marginal, focusing on the study of air cleaning and air distribution flow to improve people's comfort and energy saving.

Automated summary

Indoor climate quality has a significant impact on people's comfort indoors, especially for passengers on commercial airplanes. This study presents a multiprobe device to assess indoor climate quality and a methodology to categorize thermal comfort and indoor air quality levels in flights. The findings show that the environmental parameters on flights mostly fall within the comfort range, but there is room for improvement, particularly in air cleaning and air distribution flow.