Evaluation of arcing damage on connector for 42 V automotive power net

The conversion of the power network system voltage from 14 VDC to 42 VDC is accompanied by a discontinuous change of arcing energy produced during live intentional or accidental unplugging. This necessitates a modification of electrical breaking and connecting devices. For the connectors, it results in adding the capability of withstanding arcing during live disconnection to the basic characteristics of high conduction and low insertion effort. To quantify this new capability and the correlated level of arc damage, the authors propose to correlate the insertion criteria "insertion force" with the parameters "arc energy" and current level. Compared with our previous work, the introduction of the current parameter allows us to attribute the origin of the damage to the connector to the overheating of the contacts by heat conduction mechanisms supplied by the arc. As intermediate results, the influence of the opening speed and the contact coating on the arc energy increase is confirmed. The obtained results are help to characterize and to select arc-resistant interconnection solutions in the field of the high power automotive applications.