Reliability model development for photovoltaic connector lifetime prediction capabilities
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Yang, Benjamin B.; Sorensen, N. Robert; Burton, Patrick D.; Taylor, Jason M.; Kilgo, Alice C.; Robinson, David G.; Granata, Jennifer E.
- Source
- 2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2013 IEEE 39th. :0139-0144 Jun, 2013
- Subject
- Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Photonics and Electrooptics
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Connectors
Resistance
Contact resistance
Sea measurements
Resistance heating
Degradation
connectors
reliability
accelerated testing
fretting
corrosion
- Language
- ISSN
- 0160-8371
This paper describes efforts to characterize different aspects of photovoltaic connector reliability. The resistance variation over a population of connections was examined by measuring 75 connectors from three different manufacturers. The comparison shows differences in average resistance of up to 9% between manufacturers. The standard deviation of resistance among the same manufacturer ranged from 6%–11%. In a separate experiment, the corrosive effects of grime on the connector pins during damp heat accelerated testing at 85 ° C/85% RH were studied. We observed a small resistance increase in the first 100 hours of damp heat and no further changes up to the current 450 hours of available data. With the exception of one connector, the effects of grime on connector performance during accelerated testing could not be measured during this time period.