The design process involves a number of steps. Industry trends drive and dictate connector requirements. From these requirements, one must isolate the critical design factors and identify the overall class of alloy needed. After determining this, the designer is then in a position to specify the material characteristics that will most closely meet the application's overall performance, manufacturing, and cost requirements. A design review follows the detailed design and analysis step to ensure the achievement of requirements.
Prototypes verify the final design.
A qualification then certifies production level hardware. The qualification is a short term test to simulate long term performance. Once achieved, a connector is ready for the manufacturing challenges of production. We will consider each of the design factors and the material properties dictating connector performance. Considering this analysis, we will examine the specific properties that the designer must assess in each instance.