LAUSR

The role that thermal plumes play becomes more crucial, especially in a densely occupied space, such as an aircraft cabin. In this paper, the aim is to isolate this effect and to investigate the air distribution of individual human thermal plumes in the cabin. For this purpose, the thermal plume conditions in the aircraft cabin have been developed without any ventilation. The experimental procedure to quantify the air distribution of thermal plumes with both high temporal and spatial resolution was built with two different types of 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV) systems, and the reliability and repeatability of the measured data were verified. With such reliable data, the numerical models can be validated and improved in the future. In addition, certain phenomena were revealed in this research. From the time-averaged velocity fields, the thermal plumes were greatly influenced by the particular aircraft cabin geometry and restricted by the relatively small space and the maximum speed presented behind the manikin’s head. Through a time series analysis of instantaneous air distributions, the thermal plumes appeared one after another with a period of approximately 5 s, and the multi-scale characteristics of both time and intensity were observed by monitoring the instantaneous velocity of a typical point.Graphical abstract