ABSTRACT
Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) composites are widely used in modern
airplanes to replace conventional metal alloys due to their high strength, high
stiffness and light weight. Compared to their metallic counterparts, CFRP composites
are vulnerable to lightning strike, and thus Lightning Strike Protection (LSP) system is
required. In this work, a coupled thermal-electrical Finite Element (FE) model was
used to predict thermal damage in CFRP composites with and without LSP systems
during a lightning strike. Pyrolysis of polymer matrices and dielectric breakdown of
the insulating layer in LSP system were considered. In addition, lightning strike
induced mechanical damage in CFRP composites with a full thermal-electrical
protection was determined using a mechanistic FE analysis together with a plasma
expansion model, considering different failure phenomena, such as intralaminar
damage and interlaminar delamination.