The improvement of lightning resistance of advanced carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) faces the dilemma of lacking powerful analytical tools to accurately assess the lightning-induced damage. This paper investigates the damage characteristics of CFRPs under Joule heating and arc ablation effects through simulation studies and experimental validation. Based on similitude theory, the time-and-space-varying current and heat flows obtained from an arc MHD model were loaded on CFRPs by stepwise segmental injection to establish a coupled arc-thermal-electric model and simulate the heating, pyrolysis and damage behavior of CFRPs. The simulation results indicate that the arc thermal ablation is one of the most important factors in the prediction of CFRP lightning damage that should not be neglected. For impulsive lightning current, the arc thermal effect contribution is weaker than the conduction current Joule heating effect due to its limited duration. In contrast, for long duration continuous currents, the arc thermal ablation dominates the evolution of damage in the 2-20 mm discharge gap conditions. Compared with the thermoelectric simulation, the coupled arc-thermal-electric analysis can better simulate the damage behavior of CFRPs, which can be proved by the fact that the accuracy of simulation predictions increased from 72% to 89% with the additional consideration for arc thermal ablation damage.

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP);,Lightning strike;,Lightning-induced damage;,Thermal plasma;,Magnetohydrodynamics method;,Finite element modeling.