Electrothermal coupling model for lightning strike protection of composite materials

Abstract

In order to study the damage law of the composites lightning strike protection caused by lightning current, the electrothermal coupled mathematical model of the ablation damage of composite laminates protected was constructed based on the principle of energy balance. According to the model, a thermal-electrical coupling analysis finite element model of carbon fiber reinforcement plastic（CFRP）with protection subjected to lightning current was established based on ABAQUS, the lightning strike ablation damage was analyzed, and compared with the experimental results to verify the validity of the simulation. Thus, the ablation damage mechanism of composite laminates under different peak currents, different combination waveforms and different aluminum coating thicknesses is obtained. The results show that when the peak current increased from 50 kA to 100 kA with the same thickness of aluminum coating, the damage area of composite laminates increased by about 1.5 times. Under the action of lightning current waveform of 10/350 with peak value of 50 kA, the damage area of the composite reference is about 4 times of that the composite materials under the protection system of aluminum coating with thickness of 0.05 mm.

Keywords

• lightning strike
• composites
• electrical-thermal coupled
• damage
• ablation