TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OPPORTUNITY: Rapid and Verified Crimping for Critical Wiring Needs (LAR-TOPS-52)

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program solicits inquiries from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use. NASA provides no funding in conjunction with these potential licenses.

THE TECHNOLOGY:

NASA's Langley Research Center has created a collection of innovations for rapid, precise, and verified crimps. Wiring crimp failures can be a threat to safety and may lead to a loss of critical functions in high risk applications, such as aerospace. In addition to the safety concerns, diagnosing and repairing poor crimp connections can be costly. NASA Langley's crimping innovations increase quality and reduce risk by using ultrasound to provide real-time, nondestructive verification of wire-crimp integrity while the crimp is being formed. This technology can be applied to electro-mechanical crimping machines, where the appropriate force required to form a crimped connection is determined in real-time. Such an application prevents over or under crimping and prevents excessive tool wear. Langley has also created a means and method to calibrate and verify the mechanical and electrical settings for an ultrasonically enhanced crimp tool.

The crimping innovations are based on traditional ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods. The quality of the contact between the connector and wire is determined by sending an acoustic wave through the crimp assembly. As the applied pressure increases and the crimp terminal deforms around the wire, the ultrasonic signature passing through the crimp is altered. The system analyzes the changes in the signal, including the amplitude and frequency content, as an indication of the quality of both the electrical and mechanical connection between the wire and terminal. Various crimp quality issues such as undercrimping, missing wire strands, incomplete wire insertion, partial insulation removal, and incorrect wire gauge have been tested using this technique, and results show that the instrumented crimp tool consistently discriminates between good and poor crimps for all of these potential quality issues. This information can be used to provide a pass or fail indication for instant verification of the crimp quality and to give a better prediction for the service life of the crimp.

To express interest in this opportunity, please submit a license application through NASA’s Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS) by visiting https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/LAR-TOPS-52

If you have any questions, please e-mail NASA’s Technology Transfer Program at Agency-Patent-Licensing@mail.nasa.gov with the title of this Technology Transfer Opportunity as listed in this beta.SAM.gov notice and your preferred contact information. For more information about licensing other NASA-developed technologies, please visit the NASA Technology Transfer Portal at https://technology.nasa.gov/

These responses are provided to members of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program for the purpose of promoting public awareness of NASA-developed technology products, and conducting preliminary market research to determine public interest in and potential for future licensing opportunities. No follow-on procurement is expected to result from responses to this Notice.