A Study of Optimal Structure Design for the Contact Spring Plates in a Spring Type Connector

In common, electronic products contain connective fundamental components which are called connectors. Connectors play an important role as a bridge in electronic products. Connectors are consisted of several terminal contact springs. After connecting, contact springs will deform and normal force will be generated. Furthermore, normal force affects how connectors send electronic signal. As a result, designing a high quality contact spring is a significant lesson.
In this thesis, mechanical properties of common materials of connectors are established and the friction coefficient of different surface coating materials are obtained by experiment. Trough finite elements analysis, the overall analysis of connectors is established. The effect of mechanical properties of various materials can be investigated in the performance of contact springs. Finally, by comparison with computer analysis and experiments, accurate simulation can be achieved.
In order to learn how’s the interaction between the characteristics of contact resistance and normal force, which affect the performance of connectors, associated research and papers are collected. Moreover, the experiment is established to investigate the relationship of various type of contact behaviors and the normal force. Therefore, through previous experimental data, the properties of contact resistance can be discussed.
Design of Experiment (DOE) is a common analysis method which is applied in the thesis to analyze the effects of the structure of the springs. By establishing the analysis modality, the key parameters of designing terminal springs can be obtained. Optimal analysis is utilized to complete structure of springs. Consequently, the result of optimal analysis matches the contact resistance’s least normal force requests. The analysis procedures in the research will aim the industry as reference of design.