September 2002

Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful. More information about the program can be found at http://ctma.ncms.org/. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CTMA Connector, send a message to listmanager@ncms.org with "subscribe CTMANewsletter" or "unsubscribe CTMANewsletter" in the subject line.

Ongoing Project News

New project approved:  Enhanced Wire Integrity Systems

The U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) routinely performs overhaul, modification, scheduled maintenance and unscheduled maintenance at various sites throughout the world.  The speed with which these tasks are accomplished is critical with regard to the scheduling of military training missions and ultimately our national security.   The time required to perform these tasks is a direct relationship to the overall operational cost performance of the particular military or commercial organizations.  The amount of man-hours expended annually for troubleshooting and repairing wiring systems varies with each platform and task but there is increasing pressure to reduce cost and increase the readiness of the military hardware.  Several NCMS industrial members face these similar issues. 

This project targets the implementation of new technology that is currently being performed internal to the Navy.   The new technology includes software development that is based on input received from end user surveys.  The end users identify requirements based on common depot maintenance activities. The U.S. Navy NAVAIR community recently tested six well-known commercial wiring diagnostic and prognostic technologies for the purpose of identifying the elements of an advanced wire integrity program. As a result of the findings, it was recommended that two new technologies be inserted.  These technologies, Standing Wave Reflectometry (SWR) and an Electrical Distribution Analyzer (EDA), can help maintenance personnel rapidly identify, localize, and verify platform wiring malfunctions and system modifications.  This DoD and industry activity initialized this NCMS/CTMA effort.

This project will develop and evaluate an Enhanced Wiring Integrity System (EWIS) that incorporates the technologies recommended by the Department of Defense Depots participating in this project.  The technology will be targeted  to the multiple applications across the military and commercial industry.

The DoD participants include the Naval Air Depots at North Island and at Jacksonville, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Tobyhanna Army Depot and the Ogden Air Logistics Center.

The NCMS project manager is Lee Patch, 734-995-4972.

Interactive Visualization

The Interactive Visualization project has achieved its' goal of understanding where and how to apply the enhanced visualization technology for benefit in targeted application areas, while also identifying areas of improvement or modifications of the technology that would better enhance the objectives of the individual projects.

Benefits found: 

1. Enhanced visualization of a/or multiple object(s) that better communicated true object construct. Visualization benefits occurred in each project whether dealing with material surfaces, the material or object itself, or the object from a design/parts interrelationship perspective.
2. New or different perspectives not previously visible to the operators that provided insights to better enhance the object quality in design phase or enhanced the materials understanding of the object in question to affect decisions on object or material treatment and/or repair.

3. Identification of potential new process changes that if implemented, had the ability to more substantially deliver significant benefit to the companies/depots in the form of cost savings, enhanced product quality, human factors safety and shortened cycles in product development or maintenance activities.

We are looking to build off the first phase of the project to focus on an application area with the broadest applications and benefits. Areas most likely to provide the greatest return in value are the following:

1. Large surface area inspection with hard to access ‘human” visualization points

2. Enclosed surface area inspections (large and small) with hard to access human visualization points (inspection of enclosed gas tanks and/or pipes, where both difficulty of access and increased personnel safety in substantially hazardous areas)
3. Complimentary surface or component area visualization targeted for repair or maintenance where rapid prototype modeling of the parts (utilizing CAD software) targeting the area of attention may be of value in deriving the right fitting elements more efficiently and quickly.

These new project areas are of broad applicability in CTMA related activities and have “breakthrough” potential in utilizing new technology to enhance the quality, safety and elimination of costs in a more substantial manner than previously envisioned.  If you are interested in participating in developing and implementing such a project, please contact Chuck Ryan, chuckr@ncms.org, 734-995-4905.

We welcome the following company into NCMS membership and their participation in the CTMA program:

The Laser Engineered Net Shaping^TM (LENS^TM) project has just concluded and has achieved results, notably cost savings, beyond the objectives of the project.  Accordingly, the LENS^TM project team Optomec, Laserfare, Anniston Army Maintenance Depot, and NCMS are forming a second phase of this exciting material deposition technology project.  In addition to the existing team members, new partners include the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport, the Trident Refit Facility Kings Bay, and Rolls Royce Allison.

It is anticipated that phase II will: 

1. Design and manufacture an advanced LENS^TM system, based on the 850 but incorporating the lessons learned from Phase I, and specifically tailored for repair applications.  New system will be called the model 850

2. Phase I project team identified several technology advancements that would be required to introduce LENS^TM across the DoD.  These include: process development as a function of repair geometry, material testing to support qualification of critical aircraft components, development of improved smaller laser heads to enable deposition within small spaces, and several others.

3. Use the new “850-R” to conduct process development and materials testing to support qualification of critical components.  Perform applications development on the 850-R and existing LENS^TM 850s to validate the use of LENS^TM in repairing such critical components.

The LENS^TM Phase II team is seeking additional participants who wish to access this technology.  Interested parties should contact Mike Gnam at NCMS, mikeg@ncms.org or 734-995-4971.

Calendar Event

Don't forget to attend the DoD Maintenance Symposium and Exhibition, October 28-31 in Reno, Nevada, "Maintenance - Turning Logistics Resources into Readiness".  Further information and registration can be found at www.sae.org/servlets/index

New Project Ideas (click on topics to see descriptions)

We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred.

^TM LENS is a registered trademark of Sandia National Laboratories.