Explicit FEM analysis of a new contacting method for electronic devices with novel wiring harnesses

Through customers´ desire for an individualization of vehicles, new electronics-supported functions are continuously being added. The automobile wiring harness must meet these requests without any further increase of weight and volume. The basic trend towards a modular vehicular design, the continually growing complexity of production and assembly processes, supports the use of flexible flat cables (FFCs) in a hybrid wiring system architecture. For an integral approach, it is also important to develop corresponding alternatives for electrically contacting FFCs with the components. To that end, the process-conditional, one-sided accessibility of FFCs represents a particular challenge. Motivated by these challenges, the Institute FAPS has developed an automated assembly system of FFCs and a new concept for a flexible electric contacting system enabling direct electrical contacting of installed FFCs. The scope of this approach is the analysis of the new contacting method by means of an explicit finite element analysis (FEA). For this purpose, a numerical model was developed that enables the simulation and optimization of the contacting process and its important parameters. In a second step, the results of the FEA are validated by respective experiments.