Souriau introduces hermetic connectors for harsh environments
Connector company, Souriau has introduced hermetic connectors destined for use in harsh environments and especially in civil and military aeronautics applications. The range comprises a selection of products that comply with standards such as EN3646, EN2997 and MIL-DTL-38999.
The hermetic connectors are available either for prototypes or for maintenance, with many standard and custom products.
Arnaud Calvet, product manager for hermetic connectors says: “The large families of standardised connectors which we manufacture for the aeronautics sector are also available in hermetic versions, across the whole range of shell sizes and pin configurations.” The company has also added specific products in response to
customer demand, for example feedthroughs, thermocouple connectors and crimp contact versions.
Aeronautical projects are specifiying hermetic connectors for the aircraft’s internal electronics which have to be protected from the intrusion of fluids from the exterior. The company is also supplying sensors (for pressure, temperature, speed vibration, strain) used in all parts of the aircraft as well as requirements for hermetic connectors for the actuators of the landing gear, the wing flaps and stabilisers, flight controls and motor electronics.
Hermeticity is located first where the connector is attached to the equipment and secondly between the contacts and the shell. In the manufacturing process for the hermetic connectors, the traditional insulator is replaced by an insulator made of glass. A sintered wafer in the format of the shell and matching the contact arrangement is placed in an autoclave and melted at a temperature of 1000°C. Under the effect of the heating and cooling cycles, the glass retracts and creates total hermeticity between the shell and each contact.
