Lightning Direct Effect and Electromagnetic Shielding Analysis of Conductive Aircraft Composite

Abstract

In order to enhance the lightning protection and electromagnetic shielding capabilities of composite aircraft, the electromagnetic behavior of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite is characterized in this paper. Through the study of lightning direct effect in terms of current density distribution in each composite ply under lightning strike, the scheme to increase electrical conductivity is proposed for different fiber configurations of composite. The high frequency electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of composite is also studied and analyzed by extracting the equivalent permittivity using Nicholson-Ross-Weir method based on the measured scattering parameters. Reasonable agreement is observed between the results of simulation and validation experiment for shielding effectiveness of the composite.