Bend test for a wire harness and device for such a test
AssigneeSumitomo Wiring Systems, Ltd.
InventorsYuki Kawakita, Hitoshi Kawabe, Takuya Inoue
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The invention provides a method of simulating and estimating the minimum lifetime under repeated bending for a wire harness containing a plurality of electrical cables, by applying a compact and lightly equipped device. To this end, representative electrical cables, contained in the wire harness, are subjected to flexing and stretching until they fail under repeated bending, so that the number of bending cycles is obtained for each representative electrical cable. The minimum lifetime for the wire harness can then be estimated on the basis of the shortest cable lifetime that can be found among all the representative electrical cables tested.
Claims20
A method of simulating and estimating a minimum lifetime under repeated bending of a wire harness containing a plurality of electrical cables having a respective axis, said method comprising:
- selecting at least one electrical cable among said plurality of electrical cables;
- bend-testing said selected electrical cable individually until it fails, so that a limit number of bending cycles for each said selected electrical cable is obtainable separately;
- and
- estimating said minimum lifetime under repeated bending for said wire harness on the basis of results obtained for each said selected electrical cable.
A device for estimating the minimum lifetime under repeated bending of a wire harness containing a plurality of electrical cables having a respective axis, said device being configured to bend-test at least one of the electrical cables individually, until it fails, so that a limit number of bending cycles for each of the electrical cables is obtainable separately;
- said device comprising two cable holding devices, located at a predetermined distance apart along the axis of the electrical cable and configured to hold the latter, so as to define a median point located substantially halfway along said predetermined distance;
- said device comprising a driving mechanism and configured to repeatedly bring said two cable holding devices closer to, then farther from, each other in a reciprocating manner.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.