Instrumentation and procedures for transient magnetic flux density measurements on an aircraft fuselage-like test setup

The susceptibility of airborne vehicles to electromagnetic (EM) transients has been studied for many years. In the case of a surge current, it flows along the surface of the conducting fuselage and disperses around the circumference. A portion of the surge current also penetrates through the fuselage of the aircraft (by diffusion) resulting in transient EM fields inside the fuselage that results in EM interference with on-board electronics. In a high current laboratory, an aluminum test cylinder, representative in size and construction of an aircraft fuselage, was subjected to high surge currents, up to 15 kA. The paper discusses measurement system development issues, and the use of fiber optic systems for transient data acquisition.