Innovative and Affordable Materials/Concepts for Improving Rotorcraft Slip Ring Reliability Navy SBIR FY2005.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.2 Topic No.: N05-106 Topic Title: Innovative and Affordable Materials/Concepts for Improving Rotorcraft Slip Ring Reliability Proposal No.: N052-106-0192 Firm: Acree Technologies Incorporated 1900 Bates Ave. Suite G Concord, California 94520-8587 Contact: Mike McFarland Phone: (925) 798-5770 Web Site: www.acreetech.com Abstract: The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a conductive, wear resistant coating to improve the lifetime and reliability of slip rings, in particular the slip ring system used in the V-22 Osprey. Acree Technologies Incorporated has developed an innovative, conductive coating that is exceptionally hard, smooth and wear resistant and has a low coefficient of friction. This coating has been shown in previous tests to improve the lifetime of surfaces in sliding contact by greater than five times. Preliminary sliding contact tests have shown that the electrical noise of a coated slip ring is less than 10 mohm, exceeding military specifications. Benefits: These innovative, electrically conductive, wear resistant coatings will allow the lifetime and reliability of the slip rings on the V-22 to be significantly increased with little additional expense to the V-22 program. This approach is extremely cost effective and will reduce downtime and lower maintenance costs. Return