Dynamic thermal model of passenger aircraft for the estimation of the cabin cooling and heating requirements

Journal Article (2024)
Authors

A. Giuffré (TU Delft - Flight Performance and Propulsion)

Piero Colonna (TU Delft - Flight Performance and Propulsion)

Carlo Maria De Servi (TU Delft - Flight Performance and Propulsion, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek)

Research Group
Flight Performance and Propulsion
Copyright
© 2024 A. Giuffré, Piero Colonna, C.M. de Servi
More Info
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Publication Year
2024
Language
English
Copyright
© 2024 A. Giuffré, Piero Colonna, C.M. de Servi
Research Group
Flight Performance and Propulsion
Volume number
244
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2024.122641
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Abstract

The Environmental Control System (ECS) of passenger aircraft is the main consumer of non-propulsive power aboard. A computationally efficient and accurate thermal model of the fuselage is needed for future sustainable aircraft to address ECS preliminary sizing and control design, as the ECS should be re-designed to exploit possible synergies with other thermal management systems on board. Differently from previous works, the present aircraft thermal model is extensively documented and released open-source. Moreover, it is completely based on first principles and the acausal modeling paradigm. It results that the model is scalable, easily extendable, and allows for the estimation of the aircraft thermal loads given limited information about its configuration and flight mission. The predictive capabilities of the model have been assessed by comparing the thermodynamic state estimated at the pack discharge for three ECS operating points of an Airbus A320 with data provided by the manufacturer. The maximum deviation is limited to 2.4 K and 4.5 kPa. The validated thermal model has been used to compute the operating envelope of the A320 ECS, showing that the air supply requirements vary substantially with ambient conditions and flight phases. This calls for a multi-point design strategy when assessing novel ECS configurations.