Contact: Cynthia Furse, 797-2870
Writer: Mica McKinney, 797-1351
USU HELPING TO MAKE AIR TRAVEL SAFER
LOGAN -- The holidays mean more traveling, particularly by air. For those who fear airline tragedies, it can be especially stressful. Utah State University is working to alleviate some of those concerns.
Students led by Professor Cynthia Furse, assistant professor in the electrical engineering department at USU, are developing an answer to a dilemma of airline safety that has caught the attention of the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board, NASA, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and the White House. The focus is on faulty wiring.
Aging and damaged wires within the airplane is suspected as a possible cause of the crash of the TWA Flight 800 in which 230 people perished. Investigators are now looking closely at the problems caused by aging in airplane wiring systems that have resulted from the extended use of many aircrafts. Previously, planes were built to last for only a decade and then retired. Now planes are flying nearly double the time estimated when they were originally built, Furse said in a research report.
Instead of retiring most planes, different components of the aircraft are being updated individually. While the different components are being replaced, the miles of wiring inside an airplane is not because it is too difficult and expensive to replace, Furse said.
Aging wiring is visually inspected by technicians. However, many problems are too difficult to determine by this unsophisticated technique. Often when technicians are inspecting the wires they either miss problems or in the process of correcting damaged or malfunctioning wires they create more flaws. For these reasons various agencies and companies are developing different techniques to test the aging wires, according to Furse.
One of the most promising of these techniques is being developed by the electrical engineering department at USU.
Engineers at USU are developing a testing mechanism that will be a permanent fixture in the wiring system of aircraft. Because the mechanism is permanent, additional problems will not be created by technicians moving and bending wires when testing and examining them, Furse said.
The mechanism called a "smart connector" includes a computer sensor, as well as electrodes, that send a signal down the wires. Problems are detected by the sensor analyzing the reflections of the signal sent down the wire, she said.
With a "smart connector" pilots in the cockpit will be able to run a check of the wires minutes before takeoff. The "smart connector" would tell the pilot the location and severity of wiring problems, according to Furse.
Planes could require more than a thousand "smart connectors" to monitor the wiring in a plane. For this reason, the engineers at USU have endeavoured to create a connector that is inexpensive and lightweight.
The implementation of this device not only has the power to save hundreds of lives, but also could save thousands of dollars in service and repairs, Furse said.
The air division of the U.S. Navy is eagerly anticipating the completion of this project. They are already planning to implement "smart connectors" in many of their older planes.
Furse said she anticipates that they will have a "smart connector" that is marketable in two years.
However the engineers at USU do not plan to stop there. They have already begun research into developing a "smart wire" to be installed in new planes that would detect any problems and communicate them to the cockpit immediately.
For more information, contact Furse at 797-2780.
LINK TO MAIN ARTICLE:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY...eb01/wire.html