PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Composites and lightning discussion (extracted from AF A330 thread)
Old 1st Jun 2009, 20:52
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barrymung
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
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QUOTE: "Remember, an airplane acts as a FARADAYS cage whereby the electronic loads stay on the outside of the cage!"

Not when it's got panels made of carbon fibre, it ain't!!

Lighning will jump through the carbon fibre and strike any piece of metal it can find behind!

The A330 has a horizontal tail made from carbon fibre which contains a huge fuel tank.

The wings, I believe have carbon fibre sections, these too contain fuel tanks!

The A330 doesn't have a "nitrogen fuel tank inerting" feature, that the carbon fibre boeings have, in order to reduce the risk of fuel tank explosion!

(I'm not saying that this is the cause.)
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