Effects of thermal and moisture absorption on contact forces of electronic connectors

Abstract

The overall contact force of mated audio‐jack terminals, when conditions were varied from 25°C/50% RH to 65°C/95% RH for 48 hours, was observed to be dramatically degraded. The reduction of the contact force could seriously influence the stability and quality of the signal transmission. A finite element analysis was carried out to investigate variations of the contact force. Mechanical properties and residual stress distributions of a plastic housing produced by the injection molding processes were extracted from the mold‐filling analysis. Simulation results show that the anisotropy of the plastic housing plays a much more important role on the contact force than the inherent residual stress. Contact forces based on the plastic housing with anisotropy and temperature‐dependent Young's modulus are in fair agreement with those based on the corresponding experimental measurements under various temperature and RH conditions.

Key words:

• electronic connector
• anisotropy
• residual stress
• finite element analysis

Notes

Corresponding author. (Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; Email: [email protected])