The design of an internal current strike demonstrator

When lightning strikes an airplane, it generally attaches to a leading edge such as a wing tip and leaves via a sharp trailing edge such as the rear wing tip or tail. Lightning currents now from the point of attachment to the point of exit, the actual path of which is a function of the aircraft surface conductivity. If the aircraft surfaces are poorly conducting, current paths may inadvertently go through aircraft fuel tanks-which may result in a fuel tank explosion. In order to clearly visualize this phenomena, an internal current strike demonstrator was designed and constructed by students at North Dakota State University for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. This paper describes the design and development of the demonstrator