Study On Contact Characteristics And Temperature Field Of Electrical Connector

Electrical connector is a type of conductor device that connects electric circuit.It is mainly used to achieve the transmission and control of electrical signals.Although the electrical connector is widely used in various electronic devices,but the reliability is not high,and the failure of an electrical connector may cause the entire system to fail or even paralyze,resulting in a major accident or economic loss.The main failure mode of electrical connectors is contact failure.The contact characteristics of the contacts and the current-carrying temperature rise are the key to determine the contact reliability.Therefore,it is necessary to study the reliability of the electrical connector,and study the key factors,which affect the contact characteristics and current-carrying temperature rise.The main research object of this paper is FTP-P-006 miniature electrical connector,and the contact characteristics and temperature field of the electrical connector was analyzed through finite element.The research content is as follows:1.The key factors were studied that cause contact failure.It was found that when the contacts are in contact,the contact pressure determines the contact area between the contact interfaces,the number of contact points and the electrical conductivity.The contact pressure is the key factor to the contact failure.The contact reliability is improved by the surface plating of the contact body,and the optimization of the nickel-gold double coating was studied.The result shows that the nickel-gold double coating of the contacts can form a corrosion-resistant layer on the surface of the contacts and optimize the microstructure of the contact interface,enhanced the contact reliability of the electrical connector.2.The geometric models of the contacts,the locking mechanism and the insulating base were established,and the overall model of the electrical connector was assembled by SolidWorks.According to the product design requirements,the part model is assembled into an overall model of the electrical connector.The co-simulation platform suited for nonlinear and large deformation is established through ANSYS Workbench and LS-DYNA.The co-simulation platform was used to analyze the contact characteristics of the contacts,and obtained the assembled model of the contacts.The stress,contact pressure and mating/un-mating force curve of the contacts with the mating and un-mating process were obtained through the simulation.According to IEC 60512-13-2-2006,the contact reliability can be guaranteed,when the mating/un-mating force of the electrical connector kept 8N to 20 N.The simulation fitting maximum mating force of the electrical connector is 10.118 N,and the maximum un-mating force is 9.581 N.The mating/un-mating force was tested and compared with the simulation results.It was found that the average mating force was 11.59 N and the average un-mating force was 9.06 N,which was consistent with the simulated mating/un-mating force.The effect of the necking gap and slot width of M-type contact socket on the contact characteristics was studied by the geometry parametric simulation of contacts.It was found that increased contact pressure and mating/un-mating force of contacts achieved by increasing the slot width or decreasing the necking gap.Mating/un-mating force and contact pressure of contacts is lacking,resulting in contact failure of the electrical connector,when the necking gap was more than 0.2 mm or the slot width was less than 0.18 mm.3.The thermo-electric coupled simulation module was established through ANSYS Workbench software.The module was used to analyze the temperature rising temperature field of the current-carrying,when the electrical connector was working under the rated operating conditions of the product.The simulation results showed that the current-carrying temperature rise of the connector is proportional to the number of contact groups,but the temperature difference continuously decreases with the number of contacts,with the same load conditions.According to IEC 60512-5-1-2002,if the current-carrying temperature rise exceeds 30°C,the contact failure of the electrical connector can be easily caused,and the temperature rise value exceeds the standard.In order to reduce the current-carrying temperature rise of the electrical connector,the insulator heat dissipation structure was optimized.It is proved that the optimization scheme can control the temperature rise of the current-carrying temperature within the rated operating temperature range,and improve the contact reliability of the electrical connector,through the second simulation of the optimization model.