All I Need Is The Air That I Breath

Kansas State University mechanical and nuclear engineering faculty members have studied aircraft cabin environments for more than five years.

Byron Jones, director of K-State's Engineering Experiment Station and professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, said past research at K-State has focused primarily on understanding air movement within the cabin and how contaminants could be transferred through the cabin or flushed out of the environment.

K-State now plans to take this type of research much further as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Air Transportation Center of Excellence for Aircraft Cabin Environment Research.

Jones, who is also associate dean for research and graduate programs for K-State's College of Engineering, said the center is working out details of the research, which will be unveiled in the spring. He said the two primary areas the center will study are aircraft cabin environment air quality and security.

Cabin environment research looks not only at the environment as it pertains to passengers, but also how the environment can affect the flight crew.

"Most passengers will ride an airplane for a few hours a week at most, usually," Jones said. "The flight crews and cabin crews can be in this environment for 30 hours per week, so it's important to see how it affects them."

Jones said research into environmental comfort is important for the airline industry.

"It's an important asset for aircraft manufacturers to have," Jones said. "If your airplane has better environment quality for the consumer and still costs the same price, airlines will buy your airplanes. People pay a lot of money to travel by airplane, and they like to have a nice environment when they travel."

Security concerns pose a real challenge for the airline industry, Jones said.

"How do you deal with an intentional attack if the attack is invisible -- that is, somebody is releasing something into the cabin environment that cannot be seen -- how can we even detect it? This is what we're looking at," he said.

Jones said research on security issues is important for more than the obvious reasons.

"Of course, we want to protect the people on the airplane from terrorism, as well as people who could be affected by secondary exposure," Jones said. "This research is also important to the airline industry.

"If you have an incident on your airline, it will have a huge negative impact on the entire industry, and the particular airline specifically," Jones said. "If the airline has a secure environment and knows how to deal with these factors if they arise, it will have less of an impact."

FMI: www.ksu.edu