Project Announcement: LRU/WRAs Demonstration and Evaluation for Intermittent Fault Detection (IFD) Implementation Depot Level Maintenance at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division

As a consumer economy, almost all goods that we purchase and depend upon have some form of electronics; unfortunately, sometimes they have hidden defects. Millions of dollars are spent replacing faulty wiring and circuits, and sometimes unnecessarily replacing components in the hopes of resolving an issue.  Public industry has limited capability in detecting intermittent faults with their current shop tools.  Also, the daunting task of identifying where an electronic failure has occurred, and properly correcting the problem at the first sign of failure is sometimes impossible with common troubleshooting tools and techniques.  This situation can cause serious problems in safety-critical industries such as aerospace and transportation, with increased costs passed on to the consumer.

The Department of Defense (DoD) is also challenged by the inability to always detect and isolate faults in aircraft wiring bundles and Weapon Replaceable Assembly (WRA)/Line Replaceable Units (LRUs). These faults include opens and shorts, degraded and intermittent signals, and insulation degradation. Furthermore, legacy electronic components are experiencing increasingly reduced reliability as a result of component age and usage. Currently, the DoD is exploring opportunities to expand its suite of depot capabilities to address the current intermittent fault-testing void. The purpose of project is to build upon the experiences of Fleet Readiness Center South West and Hill Air Force Base in utilizing the Intermittent Fault Detection & Isolation System (IFDIS) and Voyager Intermittent Fault Detector (VIFD) to assess the best strategy to implement this game-changing electronics maintenance capability into NSWC Crane.

To learn more about this project contact CTMA@ncms.org. We encourage the participation of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs), including Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) and Women’s Business Enterprises (WBEs).