Macro-modelling of lightning strokes on aircraft

Lightning phenomena are relatively slow electromagnetic processes and can be modelled in quasi-static approximation even on rather large structures like aeroplanes. Modelling the interaction of lightning currents with electronic equipment in an aircraft is a great challenge because of the geometrical complexity. Using universal methods like finite difference or finite element techniques on a complete mesh of the entire configuration is not an option in a design stage where many iterations are required. In this paper, we describe a macro-modelling technique which accounts for the geometrical detail while taking benefit from the quasi-static nature of the phenomena. We show that with these techniques rapid time domain (or frequency domain) simulations on complete lightning configurations can be done giving results very close to the results of exhaustive universal modelling and measurement.