Electromagnetic Field Targeting Enhancement for Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers Induction Welding Application

The induction welding of a stringer on an aircraft fuselage skin with a lightning strike protection (LSP) on the underside of the skin is considered. The presence of LSP makes electromagnetic welding very difficult because it concentrates most of the power induced and is therefore more strongly heated than the stringer–skin interface. A new technic coupled with numerical approach that consists in inserting an electrically conductive material into the tooling in order to modify the magnetic field distribution and limit the power induced in the LSP is presented. A strongly coupled electrothermal 2-D finite element analysis (FEA) is developed to optimize the temperature profile. The 3-D FEA is then carried out in order to validate the optimum design.