Physical modelling of an aeronautical composite in fire

Abstract

The evaluation of fire behaviour of structural composites is done through experimental tests which are time consuming and costly for the aircraft manufacturers (e.g. ISO 2685 and burnthrough test). Concurrently, the amount of composites in aircraft structures has increased and each type of material has to be fire evaluated accordingly. Currently, the numerical simulation is largely used during the development phase of an aircraft. So, simulation tools are underdevelopment to predict the thermophysical behaviour of composite exposed to fire. Hence it is paramount to explore in detail the behaviour of composites upon fire in order to secure the design and the certification tests to match with the aircraft master planning.