Particulate Characterization and Control Evaluation for Carbon Fiber Composite Aircraft Crash Recovery Operations

Within the United States Air Force (USAF) Advanced Composite Material (ACM) is gaining an increasing use in military aircraft. With the number of aircraft that have increasingly large amounts of ACM materials, the probability of an incident with one of these aircraft also increases. When such an incident occurs the aircraft needs to be disassembled, removed, and later inspected as part of the accident investigation process. This disassembly process is termed ＂Crash Recovery Operations.＂ Carbon fibers have been shown to be hazardous to human health and a pilot study raised the suspicion that nanosized aerosol may be generated during the cutting of carbon fiber panels. Due to this, a bench top study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of several fiber controls. Additionally, an evaluation of a number of direct reading instruments and traditional gravimetric sampling techniques were evaluated to determine a sampling protocol for evaluation composite fibers.

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