Contact reliability modeling and assessment of electrical connectors with multi-aperture slotted leaf spring contacts

Abstract

Multi-aperture electrical connectors are widely used in the aerospace system to provide high-reliability and high-quality connections. The existing reliability assessment methods only focus on the single-aperture electrical connectors, and ignored the influence of the aperture difference on the reliability of electrical connectors, which may lead to errors in the evaluation results. In order to assess the contact reliability of multi-aperture electrical connectors at storage environment, this paper build a mathematical relationship between structure parameter of contact pairs and contact force by analyzing the slotted leaf spring jack reed structure of the contact pair and using the cantilever beam model. Based on the growth law of the oxide layer on the surface of the contact pair, the degradation trajectory model of the contact pair performance was set up which incorporating the structure parameters of contact pairs, such as pin diameter, reed length, radius of curvature of the inner and outer surfaces, and the acceleration model was established by combining the Arrhenius equation. Then based on the established degradation trajectory model, the degradation failure distribution model of contact pairs was derived, and the contact reliability evaluation model of multi-aperture electrical connectors was established by using the weakest ring model. The test scheme of constant stress accelerated degradation of electrical connectors was formulated and carried out. Finally, this paper verified the correctness of the model through analyzing the test data, and obtained the reliable life of multi-aperture electrical connectors under the storage environment temperature, which realized the contact reliability assessment of multi-aperture electrical connectors.