Fabrication Of Pneumatic Operated Emergency Exit System in Aircraft

Abstract:

Designing evacuation slides has grown more complex as the FAA has tightened performance standards. In the early 1960s, slides had to deploy in 25 seconds in non-extreme weather: no wind and medium-range temperatures. Today’s slides must deploy in six seconds in temperatures ranging from –65 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit and unfurl in winds up to 25 knots (28.7 mph). Airlines impose further challenges: Slides must be light and compact enough to fit inside an aircraft door or below the door sill or emergency exit window. So each slide is uniquely developed for its location on an aircraft model. So to overcome the above mentioned problems we are fabricating a pneumatic operated emergency exit system in aircrafts, which uses pneumatic cylinder to slide down the roller when the magnetic switch used in doors repels each other. The magnetic switches are connected to a microcontroller which in turn activated the relay. Once the relay is activated the solenoid valve connected to the relay will allow the air from compressor to pass through the pneumatic cylinder and the roller will slide down immediately for the passengers to exit the aircraft at emergency situations.

Introduction:

An emergency evacuation slide is an inflatable slide used to evacuate an aircraft quickly. An escape slide is required on all commercial (passenger carrying) aircraft where the door sill height is such that, in the event of an evacuation, passengers would be unable to step down from the door uninjured (FAA requires slides on all aircraft doors where the floor is 6 feet (1.8 m) or more above the ground).Escape slides are packed and held within the door structure inside the slide bustle, a protruding part of the inside of an aircraft door that varies with aircraft size, door size and door location. In many modern planes, to reduce evacuation time, evacuation slides deploy automatically when a door is opened in an “armed” condition. Modern planes often indicate an armed condition with an indicator light. Many slides are also designed to double as life rafts in case of a water landing.
Emergency exits are found on passenger aircraft to provide a means of evacuation onto the wing, where passengers either continue off the trailing edge by sliding down the extended flaps or by using an evacuation slide that deploys when the exit is opened.

Emergency exits are smaller in width and height than standard emergency exits on an aircraft, and therefore have a reduced evacuation capacity, and are typically added to aircraft where there is insufficient evacuation capacity at the main doors to obtain a 90 second evacuation, but where the addition of another set of full sized exits is not necessary to accomplish this. Emergency exits are primarily self-help exits meaning that in an emergency evacuation the passengers seated immediately adjacent to the exit will be responsible for assessing external hazards and opening the exit.

Objectives:

• More number of passengers can be evacuated within short period of time.
• To work on the principle of pneumatic system.
• To consume less power and easy to operate.
• The width and height of the emergency door must be designed within limited standards.
• The emergency pneumatic slider must roll out without any malfunctioning.
• Must be feasible to employ in all aircrafts occupying less space.

Methodology:

In the beginning we studied some journals, research paper & googled too to get the good project to carry on with, after some researches finally we concluded the project topic and decided to go with it. And titled our project name as FABRICATION OF PNEUMATIC OPERATED EMERGENCY EXIT SYSTEM IN AIRCRAFT. In this project we will design an emergency exit system for an aircraft using pneumatic cylinders which will help passenger and crew of the aircraft to evacuate aircraft easily and safely very quickly without any injuries. Then we studied about the requirements and advancement for our project and designed a conceptual design for it, once we knew that our requirements were satisfied then we decided to go with preliminary and detailed design, in detailed design we assumed some specification for our project, selected the materials and components as per our requirement which are explained in detail below why we selected those and decided frame structure as rectangle since the aircraft door is in rectangle shape. And we created CAED model for our project and fabricated the very same CAED model and tested our model to get the good results compared to the one which exist.

CAED Model

COMPONENTS USED

• Pneumatic cylinder
• Over wing exit door
• Solenoid Valve
• Magnetic switches
• Microcontroller
• Relay
• Battery 12 v, 1.3 AH

WORKING PRINCIPLE

• Initially in normal safe functioning of aircraft the emergency exit door will be closed and the magnetic switches will be attached.
• During an emergency situation, when the emergency exit door is opened the magnetic switches will get apart and there exists some repelling force which generates a small voltage of about 5volts which can be sensed by micro controller.
• The function of micro controller is to sense the voltage generated by the magnetic switches and activates the relay/switch and also it sounds the alarm to indicate the pilot about the activation of emergency exit.
• When the switch gets on or activated, it allows the air to flow from compressor to the solenoid valve.
• The solenoid valve passes the air flow from compressor to the pneumatic cylinder.
• The pneumatic cylinder will roll out from emergency exit door to the ground within in 5seconds of time when the air is passed into it through solenoid.
• As soon as the pneumatic cylinder rolls out to the ground the passengers can slide on it easily and can be quickly reach the ground.
• Time period of deploying can be increased by increasing the compressor pressure.
• A typical block diagram is shown as follows.

Result and conclusion:

The prototype model fabricated during the conducted project work provides following results:
• As soon as the emergency exit door is opened the evacuation slider deploys within 2-3 seconds which is the best result we have got comparing to the existing emergency exit system in aircraft.
• Once the purpose of the evacuation slider is complete and the exit door is closed, the slider retracts back to its initial position.
• Easy to slide since the slider deploys at 60 degree angle (sliding angle may vary depending on the requirements).
• Since the pneumatic operated emergency exit system deploys within 2-3 seconds, more number of passengers can be evacuated quickly and safely.
• If the air supplied to the pneumatic system is highly compressed then the slider deploys even faster.

ADVANTAGES

• Not affected by cross-wind and medium-range temperature, since the slider is supported by the pneumatic cylinder and the slider material can withstand more temperature.
• Puncture resistant
• Cost saving

LIMITATIONS

• As there are mechanical linkages used in our concept, there may be problems arising with loads acting on them.
• It cannot be adaptable to shapes for emergency evacuation such as window exits. But in present days most of the aircrafts use trailing edge flaps deployment which are enough to reach the ground and enables passenger’s evacuation. So, this limitation does not possess much problem.
• One more limitation is that the pneumatic cylinder does not withstand more weight.

COLLEGE : MANGALORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING, MANGALURU

BRANCH : DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING

GUIDE : PROF. PRANEETH H.R.

STUDENTS : MR. PUNEETH J. REDDY MR. VIKAS PAWAR MR. J. ADARSH MS. SOUMYASHREE N.

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