Embraer and USP inaugurate aircraft comfort engineering center

The objective of the FAPESP-funded laboratory is to harmonize aesthetic and functional standards for improved comfort inside aircraft.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Embraer and the University ofSão Paulo (USP) inaugurated the Comfort Engineering Center (CEC) on the São Paulo campus of the Polytechnic Scholl (Poli) on April 5th.

Built through an Embraer project with FAPESP funding and in a partnership with USP, the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), the research center aims to improve the comfort inside aircraft, harmonizing aesthetic and functional standards.

To achieve their goal, tests on the factors that influence the sensation of comfort inside airplanes will be carried out with participants that are trained and accustomed to air travel. These factors include vibration, temperature, pressure, ergonomics and illumination.

Evaluated independently in recent years by different groups at the project’s participating universities together with Embraer’s technical team, these factors will be studied in an integrated manner at the CEC.

“The researchers that work on the project have been working on distinct topics, like thermal comfort and vibration, over the last three years. Now that the center has been inaugurated, we will be able to, for example, see how these two aspects relate to one another,” said Professor Jurandir Itizo Yanagihara of the Poli Mechanical Engineering Department and project coordinator.

The research center has a simulated airport departure gate, arrival and departure monitors and an access ramp to a flight simulator with all the characteristics of the inside of an aircraft cabin.

Developed from a life-sized model and composed of parts from Embraer 170 and 190 commercial jets, the simulator—which has 30 seats and is installed inside a pressure chamber—reproduces conditions very similar to those in a real flight.

“This is the only chamber of its type in the world. The only one similar to it is at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, which simulates large aircraft,” stated Yanagihara.

According to Yanagihara, one of the issues to be evaluated at the new research center is the influence of internal cabin pressure on passenger comfort. There are differing opinions on the subject among the world’s two largest aircraft manufacturers (Boeing and Airbus) in terms of the ideal altitude at which to travel to keep passengers from feeling too tired during a flight.

“Aside from developing models to prevent discomfort from variations in cabin pressure, the models will also be fed by experimental work we are developing," said Yanagihara.

Other aspects under study in the project are the effects of internal cabin lighting on passengers’ sensation of comfort and heat. By means of a new aeronautic LED lighting system that still has not been placed in Embraer planes, the researchers evaluate which color and intensity of light are best for different parts of a flight, like a cooler, gentler color for takeoff and a warmer light during meal service.

In another mockup also installed at the research center, the possibility of controlling the temperature around each passenger (microclimates) by means of air vents or heated seats will be studied.

The researchers developed a diffusor with a geometric design that creates an air current limited to one region in such a way that one passenger’s microclimate does not change her neighbor’s microclimate. “There is a broad array of possibilities for study that we will be able to carry out,” said Yanagihara.

Unprecedented systems had to be developed to make the Comfort Engineering Center feasible, like one that controls variations in temperature and humidity inside the cabin – created by a company started by an engineer that graduated from Poli – and the system that reproduces the acoustic and vibrational effects inside the cabin, which was built by researchers from the project.

Cooperative model

Embraer’s Executive VP of engineering and technology, Mauro Kern, believes that the cabin comfort and design research project that the company is conducting as a partner with the universities is on the cutting edge of studies carried out in the field and represents a cooperative model between business and research institutions for being innovative.

“No one can evolve alone anymore, by their volition alone. Increasingly, we need to collaborate more, consolidating ideas, as will be done in this world-class research center, which will require a great deal of management,” he said.

Embraer already had cooperative technology partnerships with the universities in the project: with UFSC, where it carried out studies on vibrational acoustic comfort; with UFSCar in the field of ergonomics; and with USP on thermal comfort and cabin pressure. In 2005, the company sought out Yanagihara to create a research network involving the three universities and research groups with whom the company was already performing studies.

The research network comprised people from the Poli Mechanical and Production Engineering departments, the USP Biomedical Sciences and Psychiatric Institutes, the UFSCar Production Engineering Department and the UFSC Mechanical Engineering Department.

One result of the project already assimilated by Embraer in its aircraft design was a noise prediction model that the company uses in developing the air conditioning systems in some of its aircraft.

“All the knowledge generated by this project is being absorbed. The idea is to not wait until the end of the project to use the tools being created, but for us to take advantage of the windows of opportunity the applications provide us,” said André Gasparotti, manager of technological development projects in the areas of cabin comfort, design and external noise at Embraer.

The project is recruiting volunteers to participate in aircraft comfort tests. Interested parties can register at: www.lete.poli.usp.br/confortodecabine/inicio.html.