U professor works to improve airplane safety

Millions of people fly in thousands of airplanes daily, but it takes a lot to ensure that those planes are safe, so a U professor is developing ways to make planes and flying safer.

"Faults in airplane wires is one of the main reasons planes crash," said Cynthia Furse, a U electrical and computer engineering professor. "Most planes have over 15 miles of wiring; it is impossible and impractical to search the wires for tiny faults."

Furse said the average age of commercial planes is 12 to 15 years.

"At that age, things naturally go wrong; vibration, water from condensation and flying in general causes wires to wear down," Furse said.

"The main problem with wiring on planes is condensation," said Mike Diamond, a U alumnus and employee of LiveWire. "The wires crack, and when water drips on them they short circuit."

The problem is that the short circuits only occur when the plane is in flight.

"By the time the plane has landed, the problem is gone and it is impossible to find the fault and fix it," Furse said.

"Currently, there is no system that can detect wire faults without interfering with the signals the wires are trying to send," said Alyssa Magleby, an electrical engineering graduate student.

Furse and her students have been working on developing a system that locates the fault when it short circuits and then records it so the problem can be located when the plane lands.

"We are working on developing an intermittent, live wire fault location system that can locate the fault within one foot," Furse said.

"The system we design has to be able to function while the plane is in the air without messing up signals that are already there," Magleby said.

In 2004, Furse's research led to the creation of LiveWire Test Labs. Located in Salt Lake City, the lab is working with Furse and her students to design and produce a fault-location system.

"Statistics show that there are two flight fires a month," Furse said, "Fires that could possibly bring the planes down."

Diamond said, "We are looking to try and prevent those types of things from happening."

"The systems are not yet ready for installation, but it is estimated that by 2010 to 2012, they should be a common part of airplanes," Diamond said.

"This is a dangerous unsolved problem," Furse said, "We just want to make flying safer for everybody."