Study of Three Methods for Measuring the Mechanical Effects of Laboratory Lightning Strikes

Lightning is a long-distance gas discharge process that occurs in atmosphere, and the direct force and thermal load impact accompanying lightning strike aircraft is one of the main causes of many lightning strike accidents. As the development of aircraft shell from metal material to lightweight composite material, lightning strikes can cause extra damage to lightweight material aircraft shell. The laboratory lightning strike test is essential for assessing the effectiveness of lighshows that after the gap breakdowntning strike protection. This paper carried out a study on three methods for measuring the mechanical load of laboratory lightning strikes. In the experiment, a pulsed-power source and a 6-μF pulse capacitor provide a high-power and microsecond timescale pulsed current to the load. The range of charging voltages involved in the experiment ranged from 9 kV to 25.8 kV. Two different load structures are established, which are essentially rod-plate loads, and three test methods of mechanical effects are designed under 40-kA-level pulsed current. Experimental results indicate that three measurement methods can effectively characterize the mechanical effects of laboratory lightning strikes. In these methods, the maximum impulse measured by the metal sheets upward is 3.08 kg·m/s, the force measured by the piezoelectric sensor can reach 850 N, and the single pendulum motion obtained the maximum impulse which is 0.0145 kg·m/s.