Lightning arc interaction with complex structure

Audrey Bigand (1) , Jean-Marc Bauchire (2) , Christine Espinosa (1)

1 ICA - Institut Clément Ader
2 GREMI - Groupe de recherches sur l'énergétique des milieux ionisés

Lightning is a natural and unpredictable phenomenon due to charge generation in clouds producing intense electrical field leading to flashes of extremely high current and high voltage pulses of few µs.In this context, aircrafts are subjected to the risk of being struck during flight and the lightning damage mechanism for carbon laminate aeronautical structure is a complex multi-physical phenomenon. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is of first importance to understand and predict the interaction of the lightning arc with the aircraft structure as it will change the energy deposition into the structure and the associated vaporization profile. This sudden vaporization is equivalent to an explosion on the surface of the composite. It is aimed here to evaluate this assertion through the comparison of experimental measurements of the vaporization radii for different painting configurations with numerical predictions.

Mots clés: Lightning arc interaction; Plasma; Composite Damage; Lightning; Arc attachment expansion and contraction

Domaines: Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]

Audrey Bigand, Jean-Marc Bauchire, Christine Espinosa. Lightning arc interaction with complex structure. 15th International High-Tech Plasma Processes Conference (HTPP), Jul 2018, Toulouse, France. 15th International High-Tech Plasma Processes Conference (HTPP), pp.0, 2018. ⟨hal-02152731⟩