Experimental and Analytical Studies of the Connector Insertion Phase

Studies of connectors for electric and electronic automotive systems have been and still are being pursued. The electrical connector reliability mainly depends on the connector insertion force. This force is related to the contact force which is imposed by the connector design. A nonintrusive technique for contact force determination by deflection measurement of the contact spring during insertion phase using a laser device has been developed. The following insertion parameters during the insertion stroke can be measured: contact deflection which yields the contact force, insertion force, and contact resistance. Regarding the results for real connectors, an experimental sample of a connector based on a cylindrical pin crossed with a cylindrical spring is proposed in this paper. With this simple setup, an mathematical model was developed and permits analysis of the influence of each parameter (width, spring radius, etc). Based on analysis of the influence of the spring width and of the gap, this study offers the possibility of optimizing the design of such connectors for use in the automotive industry.