The Effect of Carbon Fibre Body Panels on Aircraft RCS
A simple case study at 50MHz to demonstrate the effect on aircraft RCS of using carbon fibre body panels, rather than metallic body panels.
Problem specification:
- Compute the monostatic RCS of an F5 fighter aircraft.
- Demonstrate the differences in RCS between a fully metallic airframe and an airframe where the majority of body panels are made from carbon fibre.
- Single layer of carbon fibre and used in construction (few metallic parts remain), with fibre alignment direction and metallic areas as indicated here.
- Carbon fibres are bonded with epoxy, resulting in layers with the following electromagnetic properties.
| Conductivity (S/m) |
Relative permittivity |
|
|---|---|---|
| Carbon fibre |
4e4 |
3.4 |
| Epoxy | 5e1 | 3.4 |
Azimuth scanned RCS
Elevation scanned RCS
