Are Composites Safe?
Composite structure [15]
This section will be used to determine if composite structures pose an increased fire risk to aircraft and if they should be considered when designing new extinguishing systems. Investigating this will involve critically discussing the findings in the literature review, as well as potentially performing a numerical analysis on the potential of a composite fire, and if resources allow experimentation into the increased fire risk compared to aluminium The discussion shall be based on several factors:
- How do composites react to fire, is this a significant factor.
- Do composites cause extra restrictions on extinguishing systems, such as possible corrosion effects?
- What are the findings of a basic numerical analysis, judging relatively simple properties such as heat of combustion and ignition temperature etc.?
- Will composites be more easily damaged then aluminium how serious could problems caused by this damage be in short and long term.
- Are any experimental results on composites available, if not is it possible to perform experiments, and will this help.