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 coupling-is 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.