Collaborative Lightning Research: The Role of Pre-Test Simulation Results in Validation Activities Associated with a CFRP Aircraft Wing Environment Definition
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: According to AC25.954, applicants must establish the airplane lightning environment when certifying transport category aircraft for fuel systems lightning protection, starting with the idealized waveforms for direct attachment zones 1, 2, and 3 provided by ARP5412B. However, a complex network of aircraft structures and systems can create conducted current distributions away from the strike point that have many paths and dependencies, which the applicant may characterize through test, analysis, or similarity. A validated simulation model can offer the most comprehensive method for characterizing this fuel systems coupling response. This paper covers testing, simulation, and validation activities relevant to a fuel systems lightning certification program. A finite difference time domain (FDTD) numerical model was created to compare with lightning tests performed on a wing made of CFRP skins, donated to the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) as part of a KART research program, having originally been built as a structural test article. Testing, performed by NIAR at their ETL facility in Wichita, KS, measured bulk currents on structural components and internal wires, magnetic fields characterizing surface currents, and voltages developed between internal wiring and ribs. Current was injected at a defined location on the wing and returned through an RCS, designed and built by NIAR to negate facility effects and emulate the test article's natural lightning response. The numerical model was constructed to match the test configuration in significant detail. While numerical models can be calibrated with substantial fidelity to match test results after the fact, significant trust in a simulation model and its results can instead be built by generating predictions before testing and showing that those predictions agree well with what testing later reveals. Highlighting this value of pre-test simulation, as a means of building confidence in the modeling approach, is a primary goal of this paper. There are critical parameters and configuration of an aircraft, that if captured in the model, can give high fidelity results that can guide design decisions, without being initially validated against a large test specimen. In this work, we present comparisons between numerical simulation and test results for three attachment and detachment configurations, along with descriptions of the modeling approach, including the representation of rib, skin, and spar joints, and of the experimental set-up used.
Institution: Electro Magnetic Applications (United States)
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7219657702