Next Generation Aircraft Wiring Insulation

Currently used wire harness technology consisting of Teflon-Kapton-Teflon (TKT) composite tape has some significant performance issues. Kapton-H has been replaced with Teflon –T (Dupont trade name OASIS) which has reduced but not eliminated the hydrolysis problem. Engineers at one of the primes for the V-22 have told us that the one issue with kapton composite is it unravels and once kapton is exposed it is susceptible to hydrolysis. Tape construction suffers abrasion when it is pulled through conduits or been installed since the tape edges tend to catch on even small protrusions. A significant worry for engineers at primes is the cost of TKT composite tape and the fact that it has a single supplier – Dupont. most of these problems can be solved with extruded insulation, but extruded insulations in the past have not met temperature requirements. Linden Photonics proposes the use of a new class of high temperature, high strength materials for use as extruded wire harness insulation, with the following properties: no thermal degradation up to 450 deg.C; excellent chemical stability; no hydrolysis problems even at elevated temperatures; no known arc tracking problems; extrudes well therefore low cost; laser markability; Linden’s past experience with these material reduces risk for the proposed Phase 1 effort. Our Phase 1 and 11 sub-contract partner is a V-22 prime which will expedite potential technology insertion.