Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Intermittence for Electronic Connectors Subjected to Mechanical Shocks

A phenomenon of the intermittence is a critical issue for electronic joints of components installed in such as a mobile carrier. In this study, a finite element analysis of DDR4 connector is utilized to assess the dynamic responses of terminal pairs embedded in the polymeric housing subjected to various mechanical shock conditions. Two approaches, respectively based on the contact normal force and relative displacement between the contacting terminal and the associated gold finger, are proposed to investigate the presence of intermittence. The intermittence of the critical terminal pair under various shock conditions along the normal and longitudinal direction of the terminal is found to be strongly related to the contact loss. Under the shock conditions along the transverse direction of the terminal, a threshold of the relative displacement between two reference points is set to effectively and accurately assess the occurrence of intermittence. The elastic/elastic-plastic multi-scale rough surface (MSRS) model adopted to directly estimate the contact resistance history of the terminal pair is further attempted. Relatively low contact resistance of the terminal pair under the condition denoting pass can be observed. On the other hand, a sudden rise of the contact resistance of the terminal pair under the condition referring to fail is demonstrated based on the MSRS model although dramatic underestimations of the contact resistance are given when the contact normal force is rather low.