High-intensity radiated field protection layer design with Al6061 metal matrix material reinforced with SiC and fly ash

Abstract

ABSTRACT From the two decades, the utilisation of electronic equipment in aerospace applications drastically increased. High-intensity radiated fields highly influence the operation of electronic equipment. As per the survey, an economy flight is affected by a lightning strike for every 1000 hours of its journey. For the fabrication of the airplane structure, fibre-reinforced materials (FRP) were used, but there is a flaw in FRP’s. FRP’s having low conductance, which cannot flow the currents produced by the lightning strike, which causes delamination and embrittlement of the airplane structure. A different composite material was introduced as a lightning strike protection (LSP) layer to overcome the said problem. The electromagnetic protection is obtained in terms of reflection and absorption of the EM waves. Al6061 material is reinforced with SiC and flyash at different combinations and obtained good mechanical, absorption loss, and reflection loss properties. The maximum reflection loss of 32.61 dB and absorption loss of 32.60 dB was obtained.