View Latest Blog Entries
Close
Categories
Testing & Assessment Certification Standard & Regulation Aging Wires & Systems Maintenance & Sustainment Management Conference & Report Protection & Prevention Research Miscellaneous Arcing
Popular Tags
Visual Inspection High Voltage AS50881 MIL-HDBK MIL-HDBK-525 FAR AS4373 Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Maintenance FAR 25.1707 Wire System Arcing Damage
All Tags in Alphabetical Order
2021 25.1701 25.1703 abrasion AC 33.4-3 AC 43 Accelerated Aging ADMT Aging Systems AIR6808 AIR7502 Aircraft Power System aircraft safety Aircraft Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) altitude arc damage Arc Damage Modeling Tool Arc Fault (AF) Arc Fault Circuit Breaker (AFCB) Arc Track Resistance Arcing Arcing Damage AS22759 AS22759/87 AS23053 AS29606 AS4373 AS4373 Method 704 AS50881 AS5692 AS6019 AS6324 AS81824 AS83519 AS85049 AS85485 AS85485 Wire Standard ASTM B355 ASTM B470 ASTM D150 ASTM D2671 ASTM D8355 ASTM D876 ASTM F2639 ASTM F2696 ASTM F2799 ASTM F3230 ASTM F3309 ATSRAC Attenuation Automated Wire Testing System (AWTS) Automotive Avionics backshell batteries bend radius Bent Pin Analysis Best of Lectromec Best Practice bonding Cable Cable Bend cable testing Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Certification cfr 25.1717 Chafing Chemical Testing Circuit Breaker circuit design Circuit Protection cleaning clearance Coaxial cable cold bend collision comparative analysis Compliance Component Selection Condition Based Maintenance Conductor Conductor Testing conductors conduit Connector Connector rating connector selection connector testing connectors contacts Corona Corrosion Corrosion Preventing Compound (CPC) corrosion prevention Cracking creepage D-sub data analysis data cables degradat Degradation Delamination Derating design safety development diagnostic Dielectric breakdown dielectric constant Dimensional Life disinfectant Distributed Power System DO-160 dry arc dynamic cut through E-CFR electric aircraft Electrical Aircraft Electrical Component Electrical Power Electrical Testing Electrified Vehicles Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Electromagnetic Vulnerability (EMV) Electrostatic Discharge EMC EMF EN2235 EN3197 EN3475 EN6059 End of Service Life End of Year Energy Storage engines Environmental Environmental Cycling environmental stress ethernet eVTOL EWIS certification EWIS Component EWIS Design EWIS Failure EWIS sustainment EWIS Thermal Management EZAP FAA FAA AC 25.27 FAA AC 25.981-1C FAA Meeting failure conditions Failure Database Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) FAQs FAR FAR 25.1703 FAR 25.1707 FAR 25.1709 Fault fault tree Fixturing Flammability fleet reliability Flex Testing fluid exposure Fluid Immersion Forced Hydrolysis fuel system fuel tank ignition Functional Hazard Assessment functional testing Fundamental Articles Fuse Future Tech galvanic corrosion Glycol Gold Gold plating Green Taxiing Grounding hand sanitizer handbook Harness Design harness protection hazard Hazard Analysis health monitoring heat shrink heat shrink tubing high current high Frequency high speed data cable High Voltage High Voltage Degradation HIRF History Hot Stamping Humidity Variation HV connector HV system ICAs IEC 60851 IEC60172 IEEE immersion insertion loss Inspection installation installation safety Instructions for Continued Airworthiness insulating material insulating tape Insulation insulation breakdown insulation resistance insulation testing interchangeability IPC-D-620 ISO 17025 Certified Lab ISO 9000 J1673 Kapton Laser Marking life limit life limited parts Life prediction life projection Lightning lightning protection liquid nitrogen lithium battery lunar Magnet wire maintainability Maintenance Maintenance costs Mandrel mean free path measurement mechanical stress Mechanical Testing MECSIP MIL-C-38999 MIL-C-85485 MIL-DTL-17 MIL-DTL-23053E MIL-DTL-3885G MIL-DTL-38999 MIL-E-25499 MIL-HDBK MIL-HDBK-1646 MIL-HDBK-217 MIL-HDBK-454 MIL-HDBK-516 MIL-HDBK-522 MIL-HDBK-525 MIL-HDBK-683 MIL-STD-1353 MIL-STD-1560 MIL-STD-1798 MIL-STD-464 MIL-T-7928 MIL-T-7928/5 MIL-T-81490 MIL-W-22759/87 MIL-W-5088 MIL–STD–5088 Military 5088 modeling moon MS3320 NASA NEMA27500 Nickel nickel plating No Fault Found OEM off gassing Outgassing Over current Overheating of Wire Harness Parallel Arcing part selection Partial Discharge partial discharge at altitude Performance physical hazard assessment Physical Testing polyamide polyimdie Polyimide-PTFE Power over Ethernet power system Power systems predictive maintenance Presentation Preventative Maintenance Program Probability of Failure Product Quality PTFE pull through Radiation Red Plague Corrosion Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations relays Reliability Research Resistance Revision C Rewiring Project Risk Assessment S&T Meeting SAE SAE Committee Sanitizing Fluids Secondary Harness Protection separation Separation Requirements Series Arcing Service Life Extension Severe Wind and Moisture-Prone (SWAMP) Severity of Failure shelf life Shield Shielding Shrinkage signal signal cable Silver silver plated wire silver-plating skin depth skin effect Small aircraft smoke Solid State Circuit Breaker Space Certified Wires Splice standards Storage stored energy superconductor supportability Sustainment System Voltage Temperature Rating Temperature Variation Test methods Test Pricing Testing testing standard Thermal Circuit Breaker Thermal Endurance Thermal Index Thermal Runaway Thermal Shock Thermal Testing tin Tin plated conductors tin plating tin solder tin whiskering tin whiskers top 5 Transient Troubleshooting TWA800 UAVs UL94 USAF validation verification video Visual Inspection voltage voltage differential Voltage Tolerance volume resistivity vw-1 wet arc white paper whitelisting Winding wire Wire Ampacity Wire Bend Wire Certification Wire Comparison wire damage wire failure wire performance wire properties Wire System wire testing Wire Verification wiring components work unit code

Insights from Europe: The More Electric Aircraft (MEA) Conference

Conference & Report

More Electric Aircraft (MEA) Conference
More Electric Aircraft (MEA) Conference in Toulouse, France

Most of our readers are limited to the number of conferences they can attend. In an effort to broaden knowledge of aerospace wiring, last year we reported from conferences in the United States and China. Recognizing the tremendous interest in making a transition to electrical components, Lectromec attended the More Electric Conference held in Toulouse, France, on February 3rd – 5th.

The snow-covered streets of Toulouse, France welcomed the visitors to the third More Electric Aircraft (MEA) Conference. The two and a half day event was attended by 300 stakeholders ranging from airframers, tier 1 manufacturers, and suppliers, to academia.

What is the MEA?

MEA is not a company or a product; it is a design concept. It is based on the idea of removing or minimizing hydraulic, pneumatics, and mechanical systems as much as possible and replacing them with electrical components.

Proper EWIS design can ease the process of maintenance.
The More Electric Aircraft design concept will require additional attention to EWIS certification. Find out more on how to address your EWIS risk assessment needs.

There are several advantages to MEA that include:

Lighter redundancy

It is heavy to place a redundant hydraulic system on an aircraft. But, if combined with a distributed power system, it is possible to get several redundant power options from an aircraft’s power system (other generators, APU, battery system, ram air turbine, etc.).

Overall lighter system

Implementation of more electrical systems has been the trend because it results in significant weight savings. It is no longer necessary to have a reservoir, pump, and tubing to support mechanical systems.

Health Utilization and Monitoring Systems(HUMS)

HUMS can be more easily integrated. It can then be used for determining if/when a Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) is at or near the end of service life (to find out more about determining your wire system’s end of life, you can read Lectromec’s Life Prediction of EWIS Components article).

Ease of installation

An aircraft’s Electrical Wiring Interconnection System (EWIS) can be progressively checked through the entire assembly process. For hydraulic or pneumatic systems, most of the equipment must be installed before being checked.

With these performance considerations, the MEA2015 conference looked toward the future of aircraft and how electrical power can be used to improve performance, reliability, and sustainability.

Latest Developments

The B787 was so highly praised at the conference that it seemed almost surreal given that the conference took place in Airbus’s hometown. More than half of the presentations discussed the technological marvel that the B787 is. The B787, with its 1.3MW of generating power (230kW from four generators) makes the aircraft the most electrical and most advanced commercial aircraft. For those unfamiliar with the B787, some of the advances of this aircraft include the complete pneumatic system removal and its replacement by electrical components—which is part of the reason the aircraft has such high electrical generating capacity.

The Maintainer’s Perspective

Perhaps the most important presentation was that from Lufthansa Technik AG. This was the only presentation from the user base at the More Electrical Aircraft. The presentation noted historical cases where airlines worked with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) during an aircraft’s definition and build phase. This ensured that the operators’ concerns were considered throughout the entire process. An example cited was the use of standardized tools. It becomes a significant cost for an operator to bring in special tooling for every aircraft type.

In addition, given all of the devices that are used on an aircraft, it is surprising that the debugging tools are not standardized and that not much is done to push for standardization. The lack of troubleshooting guidance means that each device on an aircraft requires specialized training. If the producers of LRU’s used a similar error reporting standard, it would go a long way to help maintainers reduce costs. The lack of standardized debugging tools obviously raises the question of why standardization is championed for hardware, but not so much for software.

The challenges with the MEA that the presenter identified, were similar to the challenges that NASA shuttle maintainers often bring up. Because in general, aircraft are maintained for 25 years or longer, addressing the life cycle of an aircraft presents tremendous challenges. To mitigate the challenges of obsolesce monitoring, Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MROs) need to setup support contracts with all of the aircraft’s part suppliers. For example, for an aircraft produced in 1990, the top of the line computer chip was an Intel486™.

More to Come

The 2015 More Electric Aircraft conference offered Lectromec the opportunity to present on EWIS fleet sustainment of the MEA. This and other topics discussed during the conference will be included in future blogs.

Michael Traskos

Michael Traskos

President, Lectromec

Michael has been involved in wire degradation and failure assessments for more than a decade. He has worked on dozens of projects assessing the reliability and qualification of EWIS components. In September 2014, Michael was appointed as an FAA DER with a delegated authority covering EWIS certification.