Metal mesh or not, if there is any moisure within the composite, it will explode when struck by lightning.
The moisture will instantly expand to 800 times its normal volume causing it to fail.
The same mechanism caused the damage to the afore mentioned tree.
And finding moisture in a composite panel is not all that uncommon, especially if the panel has been damaged (impact) by tooling or other methods.
Not necessarily correct. Here's why.
First, although water is a fair conductor of electricity, it is also an unreliable one that tends to vaporize under high current - which creates your 800x expansion.
That's why the aforementioned tree exploded, it's why composite panels CAN explode when hit by large amounts of electricity, and it's how those $15 hot dog cookers where you put the dog in between 2 spikes work.
If there had been a 2-gauge copper wire running down the tree, it would have survived because the lightning would have followed that path instead. If you wrap your weiner in tinfoil before putting in your $15 hot dog cooker, it won't cook (don't do it, you'll blow the fuse) because the electricity will flow through it instead of the dog.
Lightning striking an aircraft is using the aircraft as a path because it conducts electricity better than the air around it - but these strikes are not typically at the "terminal current" of the lightning bolt. That's later, if/when it reaches the ground and explodes a tree.
LS micromesh under its intended application - providing a path for megavolts at low current - works just fine.
All it's doing is providing the path of least resistance from one part of "whatever" to another part of it.
And by doing so, it bypasses any moisture in the composite, thus the moisture doesn't heat because there is no current flow through it.
Repairs need to be done according to the mfr or there will be problems.
Not only does the physical integrity need to be maintained, the electrical continuity does as well or it's no longer a protected panel.
I've seen a fibreglass commercial pool filter housing literally explode when a loose 440 volt line contacted it - burned a tennis ball sized hole in the side and the steam blew the housing into shreds.
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