The future of wire health

While recent technological advances can provide increased safety through faster suppression of shorts and arcing type conditions, it can also add significantly to ongoing maintenance costs.

Traditionally, vehicle power wiring safety has consisted of a reactive thermal circuit breaker that responds to an overload condition. Maintenance operations have been reactive as well, searching for a possible damaged section of wiring in a large and often difficult to access wire bundle.

Advancements in detection of changes in impedance, arc, corona, and reflectometry to measure general wire damage have the potential to automate the process.