Smarter lightning defense for future aircraft

Researchers at Boeing and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics are exploring new ways to help protect future airplanes from lightning.

Their joint work focuses on a physics-based method that could improve how aircraft are zoned and thereby certified for lightning protection, especially as the aerospace industry looks beyond today’s familiar tube-and-wing configurations.

Lightning is a well-understood part of the aviation environment, and aircraft are designed and certified with robust protection systems to safely manage it. As airplanes evolve with new shapes, materials, and structures to improve efficiency, performance, and sustainability, Boeing sees this research as an important step in ensuring lightning protection methods continue to advance alongside future designs.

The latest study, as published in IEEE Access, reflects work by MIT doctoral student Nathanael Jenkins and MIT professor Carmen Guerra-Garcia, along with Boeing Associate Technical Fellows Louisa Michael, electro-physics scientist, and Ben Westin, electromagnetic effects engineer. The team built a model that predicts not only where lightning is most likely to attach to an aircraft, but also how it may sweep across the surface after the initial strike.

That information can translate into zoning maps that show which areas of an aircraft need greater protection. The approach combines computational fluid dynamics, electrostatics, and lightning sweep simulations to create a more flexible and scalable method for assessing both conventional and unconventional aircraft designs.

"Physics-based methods provide opportunities to help shape the future of aircraft design, certification and safety. This is a strong example of how industry and academia can work together to turn advanced science into practical solutions for future aircraft.” - Lane Ballard, Boeing Chief Technology Officer

“Our decade-long collaboration with Boeing brings together researchers and engineers who share a common goal, combining MIT's fundamental research and computational modeling with Boeing's expertise in aircraft design and lightning protection,” said Guerra-Garcia. “Together, we are developing predictive tools to better understand lightning behavior and support future aircraft.”

Traditionally, aircraft lightning zones have been developed through years of flight experience and post-strike inspections. That process has worked well for existing airplane designs, but Boeing and MIT are working to create a more physics-driven approach that can support new configurations earlier in the design process.

The team validated the method on a conventional tube-and-wing aircraft and found that the physics-based zoning maps were consistent with the industry’s long-established approach. That validation gives Boeing confidence that the method could help engineers better understand how to protect future aircraft concepts, including blended-wing and truss-braced designs.

"Physics-based methods provide opportunities to help shape the future of aircraft design, certification and safety,” said Lane Ballard, Boeing Chief Technology Officer. “This is a strong example of how industry and academia can work together to turn advanced science into practical solutions for future aircraft.”

For Boeing, the collaboration reflects the value of working with universities on advanced research that can help solve real engineering challenges. As the industry looks ahead to new aircraft concepts, research like this helps build the tools needed to design airplanes for safety, efficiency and performance from the very beginning.

Learn more about how Boeing creates lightning to study its effects on aerospace parts.

By Quinn Marciano