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Results for: wire system certification

Superconductors and Wire Qualification

December 5, 2023 Chris Wollbrink

Discovery of a room temperature superconductor would have a tremendous impact on the aerospace industry and could result in lighter aircraft. In this article, we consider this impact and discuss steps that would need to be taken by the industry before a superconductor could be practically incorporated into aerospace applications. Read more

The Special Little Wire – Holiday Season 2022

December 14, 2022 Lectromec Team

“The Special Little Wire” is a story about a cheerful 24AWG wire journey to achieve his dream of being installed on an aircraft. But will he be able to become part of an aircraft Electrical Wiring Interconnection System (EWIS). Read more

IEC 60851-5 Winding Wires – Electrical Property Test Methods

October 18, 2022 Laura Wishart

Winding wires, or magnet wires, are the wires used to construct coils in electronic components (transformers, relays, etc.) that generate the component’s magnetic field. These wires are primarily composed of a copper or aluminum conductor with a very thin layer of insulation. The insulation layer is as thin as possible to keep the wire cross-section small making it possible to squeeze the highest number of windings in the motor. Whereas most electrical wires are cylindrical, winding wires often have a rectangular cross-section profile; this allows for maximum cross-section during winding, thus reducing potential losses. Read more

EWIS High Voltage Certification

April 14, 2022 Michael Traskos

With the gradual industry implementation of high voltage EWIS systems in aviation, the demand for HV-specific safety standards is rapidly growing. High voltage OEMs currently use available industry standards, as applicable, but are still left with the task of developing and justifying their own system requirements. The SAE’s AS50881 standard, often considered the ‘go-to’ standard for OEMs, could benefit from proposed updates made to address the gaps for high voltage systems. Read more

Risk Assessment and Small Aircraft Certification

November 17, 2021 Michael Traskos

The basic idea behind the F3230 is to limit the total number of assessments to those that are of particular concern for aircraft safety. This aligns with the change of part 23 aircraft the FAA has implemented for a more performance-based certification approach versus the detailed and prescriptive approach that the FAA used prior to 2016. Read more

Aerospace High Voltage Systems: Addressing the Gaps in Current Standards

October 6, 2021 Michael Traskos

The aerospace segment has been dealing with questions of high voltage systems for the last decade. Many of these questions revolve around the generation, storage, and use of this power, but what has also been a hindrance for progress is defining how the standards for the wiring system need to be updated to address these high voltage requirements. As should be done when any new technology is being applied to a field, we should first look at other fields which have undergone the implementation of similar technologies. For example, the automotive market has been using high voltage systems for quite some time and the standards committees have produced documents supporting these technologies.

In this article, we review one of these documents on high voltage directed to the automotive market and see how it lines up with the existing aerospace standards.

WPAFB Wire Study

October 14, 2020 Michael Traskos

Key Takeaways Publicly available recorded data compares many of the commonly used aerospace wire types. Corona extinction and inception voltages of cables decrease drastically with an increase of elevation. Many insulation types display a significant decrease in mechanical durability at increased temperatures. Modern wires of the AS22759 family are incapable of stopping 270 voltage DC […] Read more

AS4372 – Building a Wire/Cable Specification

July 27, 2020 Michael Traskos

While it is possible to start from scratch and develop an independent set of tests and performance requirements, there are existing standards that can be used to expedite the process. Read more

Light Weight and Normal Weight Wire Constructions

April 10, 2020 Michael Traskos

Saving weight is a large part of any aircraft design. Naturally, the electrical system is not exempt from the goal of shaving off a couple of pounds. This often comes in the form of looking for lighter connectors, lighter clamps, and also lighter wire constructions. Those that have done this have undoubtedly come across two classifications of wire construction: “Normal weight” and “light weight”. Of course, if the EWIS has to go on a diet, then the “light weight” construction looks like a good substitute for the “normal weight”… after all, why would the wire be called “light weight” if not for satisfying weight requirements. Read more

Impact of Secondary Wire Harness Protection on Heating

December 10, 2019 Michael Traskos

If you are standing outside on a cold winter day, would you be warmer in a T-shirt or in a jacket? The answer is obvious, but somehow that ‘obvious answer’ is obscured when thinking of aircraft wire harness design. A common question of OEMs and aftermarket modifiers is: how much of an impact (if any) does secondary harness protection have on wire harness heating?

Lectromec took time this last week to put together a representative harness and run tests to generate data on the thermal impact of three secondary wire harness protection schemes. While this data is not representative of every wire harness configuration, it does provide a basis for determining if additional testing (or simulation) are needed for your application.