Effects Of Electrical And Thermal Aging On Separable Connectors

To date the majority of the aging tests performed on separable connectors consisted of aging samples at a voltage much higher than its rated voltage. This information was used to calculate the equivalent life of the samples at rated voltage. This paper discusses improvements to the aging test to obtain more useful information. Samples were tested at a higher than rated voltage and were subjected to an elevated temperature on the dielectric aging of the separable connector. Other tests were run to determine the effect of moisture on the separable connectors. This leads to a more complete test of the performance of separable connectors, and will allow designers to predict the field performance of separable connectors more completely.