Review Article Proc IMechE Part D: J Automobile Engineering 1–8 Ó IMechE 2018 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0954407018764146 journals.sagepub.com/home/pid Design and study of new power connector with parallel contact points Amine Beloufa 1 and Mohamed Amirat 1 Abstract The electric power in electric automotive can reach more than 60 kW; this power is very high and can cause a serious damage in a classical electrical connector as softening or melting of the contact zones. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new power connector designed with recent electrically conductive materials; these materials have a good compromise between the electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. A finite elements model of the connector was developed to calculate contact resistance and temperature, contact area, insertion force, and mechanical stresses. The obtained results were very satisfactory and show that the new connector supports a high electric power more than a classical connector. Therefore, the developed connector presents a large interest for connectors designers. Keywords Electrical connector, high copper alloys, finite elements, indirect coupling method Date received: 20 May 2016; accepted: 22 May 2017 Introduction Modern cars including electric or hybrid cars require a high electrical power to satisfy the needs of comfort, security, performance and to reduce the fuel consump- tion. The increase in electrical power requires an improvement of classical automotive connectors, hence the birth of the new connector called power connector which is submitted to high current. Beloufa 1 has ana- lyzed experimentally and numerically a power connec- tor, 2 the type of the contact surface in this connector is cylinder/plane, and this contact type has shown its inef- fectiveness when the pin was not aligned with the spring. In fact, the loss of a part of the contact surface due to this misalignment induces a decrease in contact area and therefore an increase in contact resistance, 3,4 which is not advantageous for connector designers because their only objective is to minimize the contact resistance. Based on the comparison carried out by Beloufa 5 between the elec- trical contact resistance of a cylindrical contact and sphe- rical contact which possess the same radius and the same material, the author has not recommended the use of a contact with cylindrical form because it has an electrical contact resistance higher than the electrical contact resis- tance obtained for a contact with spherical form. The originality of our work is to analyze experimentally and numerically a power connector that includes four spring lamellae with a spherical shape and a pin with a flat shape. Several previous studies 6–9 have numerically ana- lyzed the electrical contact resistance based on an indi- rect coupling between the mechanical, thermal, and electrical aspects. The new contribution of our work is to use an indirect thermoelectro-mechanical coupling for modeling the behavior of the connector with the consid- eration of the plasticity of the material. Beloufa has demonstrated using the finite elements modeling the influence of the contact point number on the minimiza- tion of contact temperature and contact resistance. To minimize the contact resistance and contact temperature of our power connector, we have developed a new power connector that includes two parallel contact points for each spring lamella. Dimensions and shape of the analyzed connector The analyzed connector is composed of a flat pin and a spring which contains four lamellae, each lamella has one spherical contact point (Figure 1). 1 Smart Structures Laboratory (SSL), University Centre of Ain Temouchent, Ain Temouchent, Algeria Corresponding author: Amine Beloufa, Smart Structures Laboratory (SSL), University Centre of Ain Temouchent, P.O. Box 284, 46000 Ain Temouchent, Algeria. Email: beloufaamine@yahoo.fr