GALVANIC CORROSION BETWEEN CARBON FIBERS AND COPPER / ALUMINUM MESHES IN AGGRESSIVE CONDITIONS

摘要

Fiber reinforced composites have been widely utilized in many industries, including aircraft andrnspacecraft, ship, automobile, construction, electronic and packaging, as well as biomedical andrnenergy. In order to protect the composites against lightning strikes, avionic industry usually usesrnCu and Al meshes or sheets on the topmost layer of the carbon fiber reinforced composites. As isrnknown, carbon fibers are nobler than both Cu and Al meshes, resulting in galvanic corrosionrnwhen these dissimilar materials interact with each other in an appropriate environment.rnConsequently, the lack of conductivity on the composite surfaces causes the huge failure whenrnthe lightning strike happens. For this reason, lightning strike protection has been vitallyrnimportant for the new generation of composite aircrafts. In the present study, we investigated therngalvanic corrosion effects of carbon fibers and metal meshes at different conditions (e.g., acidicrnand salty water). We found that the environmental conditions had a big impact on the galvanicrncorrosion between carbon fibers and metal meshes used for fiber reinforced composites inrnaircraft. This result may be useful for redesigning the new generation of composite aircraft in thernfuture.