Wire Chafing Diagnostic Technology for Aircraft

The Phase I objective of this R&D project is to confirm the feasibility of developinga solid state relay (SSR) to replace the problematic electromechanical relays in theautomatic bus transfer (ABT) control circuitry of the in-plant load centers onboardCVN 68 class ships. The feasible design will closely match N-130 performancecharacteristics and have substantially increased reliability, low maintenance, theability to accommodate six current configurations and cost significantly less thanthe $1800 replacement electromechanical relay.Anticipated Benefits: The solid state relay design will exhibit greatly increasedreliability, low operational and replacement cost. It should be noted that thereplacement cost for electromechanical relays is not guaranteed to remain approximately$1800 nor would it be unreasonable to expect the electromechanical relay failure rateto increase as the population ages. A successful SSR design could eliminate theprobable prospect of substantially increasing electromechanical relay maintenance costs.Potential Commercial Benefits: The reliable, compact, flexible and cost effectivedesign anticipated would permit pursuit of applications using the same or similardevices which in and of themselves would not justify the engineering and manufacturingcosts necessary to develop solid state replacements but could use directly or withminor adaptation the replacement relay developed under this program.