Computational Investigation of Lightning Strike Effects on Aircraft Components

Abstract

A lightning strike to the aircraft seriously affects the aircraft and its components in various ways. As one of the most critical threats to the flight safety of an aircraft, fuel vapour ignition by lightning can occur through various means, notably through hot spot formation on the fuel tank skins. In this study, a coupled thermal-electrical approach using the commercial software ABAQUS is used to study the effects of a lightning strike on aircraft fuel tanks. This approach assumes that the electrical conductivity of a material depends on temperature, and that a temperature rise in a material due to Joule heat generation depends on electrical current. The inter-dependence of thermal and electrical properties-the thermal-electrical couplingis analyzed by a coupled thermal-electrical analysis module. The analysis elucidates the effects of different material properties and thicknesses of tank skins and identifies the worst case of lightning zones.

Concept of a Conducting Composite Material for Lightning Strike Protection

“…The most serious danger during the lightning strike is connected with hot spot formation in components of fuel tanks. However, the actual aviation regulations on design and protection of aircraft fuel tanks [6] guarantee their protection from burning out and eventual fuel ignition. This is also confirmed by a fact that the last registered airplane crush in USA directly attributed to the fuel tank explosion caused by lightning happened in 1967 [7].…”

Evaluation method for lightning damage of carbon fiber reinforced polymers subjected to multiple lightning strikes with different combinations of current components

“…From the aspect of numerical simulation, [18][19][20][21][22][23] researchers speculated that lightning damage is related mainly to the generation and conduction of Joule heating, meaning that the distributions of the resin deterioration, fiber fracture and delamination depend on the lightning energy and the anisotropy of the CFRP laminates. Ogasawara et al 18 established a coupled thermal-electrical finite element analysis model based on ABAQUS to explore the influence of the electrical parameters of the CFRP, especially the conductivities, Figure 1.…”

Neural networks-based robust adaptive flight path tracking control of large transport

“…During the airdrop process, uncertainty is inevitable, so it is very likely that the model function is unknown. Besides, the ground effect [3,4,5], a sensor measurement error and the low altitude airflow and other uncertain factors seriously disturb trajectory control and threaten the flight safety and mission performance [6,7,8].What's more, the aircraft with a low-speed flying state has a poor anti-interference performance, which is highly susceptible to low-altitude atmospheric disturbances. Over the recent years, quite a few meaningful achievements have been reported in developing advanced aircraft controllers to ensure the accuracy and aircraft safety of the airdrop [1,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”