Comparison of different types of coil in Electromagnetic terminal - wire crimping process: Numerical and experimental analysis

Electromagnetic (EM) terminal - wire crimping process, is a non-conventional high-speed crimping process using the energy density of a pulsed EM field. A subsequent coupled field analysis of EM terminal - wire crimping was performed using finite element method in LS-Dyna™. Simulations were carried out on aluminum terminal over aluminum wire strands using three different types of coil cross-section (trapezoidal, rectangular and circular geometry) with five turns helical coil. For the comparison cross-section (CS) area, and coil length was kept constant. The results obtained from the comparison were utilized for the fabrication of the coil. Validation of results was carried out using radial deformation and contact length between wire strands and terminal. The simulation predictions agree well with the experimental results. Some other important test results like electrical contact resistance, hardness, and pullout test were also carried out. Results show that the trapezoidal CS was the optimum geometry among the rectangular CS and the circular CS, which also shows that change in geometry, can enhance the crimping process in many parameters, which are discussed in this paper. The new outcomes of research would be helpful in determining the optimum geometry for the helical coils in similar applications.