Lightning strike effect on carbon fiber reinforced composites – effect of copper mesh protection - ScienceDirect
Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composites have been widely used in aircrafts and wind turbines due to their superior qualities like light weight, corrosion resistance, lower thermal expansion and fatigue resistance as compared to metals. But, the reliability of CFRPs subjected to lightning strike is yet to be understood in detail, as the electric current can cause resistive heating within the polymer, leading to thermally induced damage. A lightning protection system in the shape of a copper mesh layer is incorporated on the exterior of the laminates to conduct the strike electricity. In the current study, the effectiveness of copper mesh lightning protection system in reducing the volume of CFRP decomposed was studied numerically with respect to the change in its thickness, and the hole area percentage (Ah). The commercial software ABAQUS was used for the simulation. The study indicates that even with a very thin copper sheet of 50 μ-m and 60% hole area fraction the volume of CFRP material thermally decomposed due to the lightning strike reduces to 6.44% of an unprotected CFRP laminate. The results also indicated that the increase in thickness of copper layer and decrease in Ah resulted in minimal composite material volume decomposition.
