Project AWARE is - NDT Inspection of Inaccessible Electrical Wiring in Aging Aircraft.
As an aircraft ages, its components deteriorate at different rates. The airframe may last for several decades, but other parts must be replaced after only a few months of service. Alarmingly, however, the most critical system within the aircraft, the electrical wiring interconnection system is perhaps the most difficult and tedious to analyze, maintain, and repair. Numerous assaults weaken the wiring in aircrafts, from the conditions of flight, such as severe temperature fluctuations, vibration, chafing, and contaminants, to the properties of the wire itself as its insulation becomes dry, brittle, and cracked with age. Recent investigations of aircraft with more than 20 years of service found as many as five breaches in the insulation for every thousand feet of wire. The average age of an aircraft in the military fleet is 23 years. Each breach is a possible flashpoint for an arcing incident such as those implicated in the well-known commercial disasters of TWA flight 800 in 1996 and Swiss Air flight 111 in 1998.
Some of the available tools for diagnosis of wiring problems and defects include visual impedance and impedance testing. Visual examination is a painstaking art in itself. Some breaches in insulating materials are no larger than the head of a pin, some are hidden within bundles and beneath clamps, and vast stretches of wiring are inaccessible without dismantling the aircraft. Impedance testing measures resistance from one end of the wire to the other. Nondestructive resistance tests, using voltage of 28V or less, are available, but the technique requires frequent disconnection and reconnection of cables.
The project aims to develop more convenient and effective methods to detect the inaccessible electrical wiring in ageing aircrafts.