The safety of aircraft can be threatened by environmental factors, such as icing, turbulence, and lightning strike. Due to its adverse effects on aircraft structure and electronic components of aircraft, lightning strike is one of the biggest hazards on aircraft safety. Lightning strike can inject high voltage electric current to the aircraft, which may generate strong magnetic field and extreme hot spots, leading to severe damage of structure or other equipment in aircraft. In this work, mechanism of lightning strike and associated direct and indirect effects of lightning on aircraft were studied. First, on the basis of aircraft lightning regulations provided by Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP), we considered different lightning waveform and zones of an aircraft. A coupled thermal-electrical computational model of ABAQUS was then used for simulating flow of heat and electric current caused by a lightning strike. A study on fuel tank, with and without lightning protection system, was also conducted using the computational model. Finally, electric current flow on two full scale airframes was analyzed using the EMA3D code.

Accurate prediction of the trajectory and time of a time-varying mass parachute system remains essential in the mission requiring a precision airdrop to the ground. In this study, we investigate the altitude-varying behavior of a cross-type parachute system designed to deliver a time-varying mass object like flare. The dynamics of the descending parachute system was analyzed based on the Runge-Kutta method of the ordinary differential system. The drag coefficients of the cross-type parachute and flare were calculated by a CFD code based on the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation. Finally, by using a simplified gust wind model in troposphere, the combined effects of gust wind and time-varying mass were examined in detail.