ASHRAE - American Society of Heating@ Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers@ Inc.
Scope
INTRODUCTION Aircraft cabin air quality (CAQ) potentially affects significant numbers of people ?C nearly one billion passengers are enplaned each year on airlines in the U.S. alone (NTSB@ 1998). Combustion products@ including environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)@ received early attention in the late 1960s. Since that time@ the perspectives of the CAQ problem have grown to include ozone (O3)@ volatile organic compounds (VOCs)@ and semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs). The primary focus of past work has been to characterize contaminants; relatively little work has been done to investigate underlying causes beyond exploiting fairly obvious associations. O3 levels in the aircraft cabin@ for example@ are more likely to come about from ingestion of stratospheric O3 through the environmental control system (ECS) than from any process within the aircraft. On the other hand@ the presence of certain VOCs could point to emissions from ubiquitous constituents of consumer products brought into the aircraft by passengers@ and the presence of SVOCs could relate to emissions from various oils and fluids or their decomposition products that are not meant to come in contact with cabin air. Thus@ as the list of contaminants began to grow@ concerns also began to shift to determining underlying sources. Sources of concern include entry through the ECS@ as well as emissions from various activities@ materials@ and processes in the aircraft cabin. The project covered by this report (ASHRAE 959-RP) is aimed at determining aircraft supply air contaminants and demonstrating effective methodologies for measuring air contaminants associated with the aircraft air supply system. The methodology addresses aldehydes and ketones@ carbon dioxide (CO2)@ carbon monoxide (CO)@ SVOCs@ respirable particles (PM2.5 and PM10)@ and VOCs.