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Hypothetical experiment: If you place a scale in a vacuum chamber and compare the weight of a
filled balloon with an empty one, you’ll see that air has mass.
Earth’s atmosphere is about 300 miles thick. At sea level, our bodies are subjected to about 14.7
pounds of pressure from this tall column of air. I’ll bet you don’t even notice! For animals roaming the
earth’s surface, a 14.7 psi atmosphere provides the perfect amount of oxygen.
As we climb in altitude, the amount of air pressure acting on us decreases rapidly. You notice the
decrease when your ears pop while driving up a mountain or riding a fast elevator. Although the
atmosphere is 300 miles thick, most of the air molecules are squashed down to within a few
thousand feet of the earth’s surface.
As we climb higher, air molecules are spread farther apart. When we breathe, our lungs take in less
air, and less oxygen. Folks living in Denver, Colorado (5600 ft) are quite happy breathing the lower,
12 psi atmosphere. Climbing to a higher altitude, though, and the pressure drops really fast.
At 18,000 feet, the atmospheric pressure is down to 7.3 psi, about half the sea-level pressure. There
just isn’t enough oxygen in a breath of air to adequately supply the brain. At this pressure, a healthy
adult has only 20-30 minutes of useful consciousness.
To survive high altitudes, occupants of an aircraft need help breathing. The solution is to pump air
into the airplane so the interior pressure is high enough to keep the humans happy.
Why bother with pressurization? Why not fly down low?
Airplanes can certainly fly below 10,000 feet where the atmospheric pressure is a comfy 10 psi or
higher, but it has some drawbacks:
If you want a fast, smooth ride in a fuel efficient airplane that can fly over a mountain range, we need
to pressurize!
The airplane body (fuselage) is a long tube capable of withstanding a fair amount of differential air
pressure; think of it like a big plastic soda bottle. In theory, we could seal the bottle so, as the
airplane climbs, the interior air pressure would stay the same. We can’t do that because it’s hard to
perfectly seal a huge airplane fuselage. Even if we could, the passengers would quickly use up the
available oxygen. And just imagine the smell inside a perfectly sealed tube on a long flight! Clearly, a
big sealed soda bottle won’t work for us without some modification.
One of the benefits of a pressurization system is the constant flow of clean, fresh air moving through
the aircraft. The air inside the airplane is completely changed every two or three minutes making it
far cleaner than the air in your home or office.
Pressurization systems are designed to keep the interior cabin pressure between 12 and 11 psi at
cruise altitude. On a typical flight, as the aircraft climbs to 36,000 feet, the interior of the plane
“climbs” to between 6000-8000 feet.
Two types of mechanical devices are installed on the fuselage to protect the pressurized section of
the aircraft against excessive pressure differential.
Negative pressure differential means the pressure outside the cabin is greater than the pressure
inside the cabin. This situation could occur during a rapid descent. Negative pressure is bad
because it pushes inward on doors and windows. These components are not designed for this type
of force.
Again, spring-loaded devices are used to protect the fuselage from damage. Air pressure of less
than 1.0 psi against the outside of the doors causes them to open inward against the spring load,
venting air into the fuselage to equalize the pressure.
Negative pressure differential relief doors on a Boeing 757. Excess pressure outside the fuselage forces
the doors to open inward venting air inside the fuselage.
Boeing Stratocruiser by SDASM
Electric Compressors
Old piston powered airliners, like the Boeing Stratocruiser, used electric air compressors to pump
fresh, outside air into the cabin. This system worked well, but the compressors added a lot of weight
to the aircraft.
A jet engine has three main sections: compressor, combustion, and turbine/exhaust. The
compressor is at the front of the engine. A series of spinning blades draws in fresh, outside air. As
the air is compressed, it becomes very hot. Remember high school physics? As a gas is
compressed, its temperature rises. The hot, compressed air then enters the combustion chamber
where it is mixed with fuel and burned. The expanded gasses continue through turbine blades which
power the compressor blades before exiting the engine producing thrust.
Turbofan
Operation by K. Aainsqatsi – CC BY-SA 3.0
Bleed air is fresh, clean, hot air taken from the compressor section of the engine before it is mixed
with fuel or exhaust gasses. Common uses for hot bleed air are wing and engine ice protection,
cabin pressurization, engine starter motors, and air driven hydraulic pumps.
The remaining indicators and knobs are for redundancy in case of a malfunction. There are two
separate automatic modes. A manual mode allows us to adjust the position of the outflow valve
should both auto systems fail. Pressurization systems work great and rarely cause any trouble.
Effects Of Flying In A Pressurized Cabin