This chapter summarizes the work done at the Airliner Cabin Environment Research Lab (ACERL) related to air quality, airflow characteristics, and human thermal comfort inside aircraft cabins. The laboratory is part of the Institute for Environmental Research (IER) at Kansas State University. It has a Boing 767 mockup cabin, bleed air simulator, and a Boeing 737 actual aircraft section that were all utilized to conduct experimental studies to understand air quality inside aircraft cabins. The studies summarized in this chapter include particle image velocimetry (PIV) investigations, particle dispersion, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, tracer gas and smoke visualization studies, and bleed air investigations. The chapter also summarizes other related studies including virus dispersion, air quality monitoring devices, and related developed air quality standards. The scope of this chapter is to summarize the setup and results of each of the above categories. This summary along with the cited references provides results for full size aircraft cabin environments, helps validate data for CFD simulations, and provides comparison data for other similar studies. This helps improve the design of future aircraft cabins and their ventilation systems and recommends changes to maintenance practices done that can improve the health and safety of humans inside these enclosed compartments.
Part of the book: Indoor Environment and Health
Global warming and climate change are rising issues during the last couple of decades. With residential and commercial buildings being the largest energy consumers, sources are being depleted at a much faster pace in the recent decades. Recent statistics shows that 14% of humans are active participant to protect the environment with an additional 48% sympathetic but not active. In this chapter, net-zero energy buildings design tools and applications are presented that can help designers in the commercial and residential sectors design their buildings to be net-zero energy buildings. Case studies with benefits and challenges will be presented to illustrate the different designs to achieve a net-zero energy building (NZEB).
Part of the book: Zero-Energy Buildings