Abstract
The air conditioning system of executive, commercial, or military aircraft heavily relies on air cycle machines due to the availability of engine bleed air and their lightness and reliability compared to vapor cycle systems. The type of application, weight, refrigeration capacity, financial aspects, size, performance, and other specific design requirements drive the selection of suitable equipment for a particular aircraft. The motivation of this paper has been based on summarize the main concepts of the aeronautical environmental control system, as well as the mathematical aspects underlying the modeling of a simple/bootstrap air cycle unit in a software. The main aim is to develop software that can generate high level requirements that would be refined during the development phase of an aeronautical air conditioning system. It will be greatly benefit for engineers and students in the design of aeronautical air conditioning systems to better understand and to meet the design requirements. The results demonstrate the influence of the water-sprayer and chilled-recirculation system on air cycle performance and cabin inlet temperature, respectively. They also show changes in certain parameters of interest such as a function of altitude, power consumed by the secondary compressor, and air cycle machine fan. The computational model has proven to be a useful tool for performing parametric studies and evaluating critical points in designing and selecting an air conditioning unit based on a simple/bootstrap air cycle with humid air (any quantity of moist) as the working fluid.
