High-Temperature Electric Wires

Electric wires and cables constitute by far the largest weight portion of aircraft electrical power systems, as well as a large fraction of the entire aircraft weight. For example, a modern transport aircraft contains over 200 miles of wire, and an F-22 aircraft has about 20 miles of wiring. The increased emphasis and reliance on fly-by-wire technology and avionics for modern aircraft has resulted in wiring becoming a critical safety-of-flight system. Aerospace vehicles continue to increase in wire system complexity and volume as traditional mechanical systems, such as flight controls and flight surface control actuators, are converted to all electric systems. This Phase II Proposal involves a dual pronged strategy for developing high temperature CNT-based power cables: 1) Dexmat will seek to improve the underlying CNT yarn conductivity with and without dopants that do not require encapsulation (i.e., non-transitory dopants); 2) Improve the encapsulation process to enable the use of dopants that do require encapsulation.