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70 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2024 Crimped electrical contact reliability is con- trolled through strict manufacturing processes and verifications, including pull-force testing. Cable and wire harness assemblies' standards provide the minimum pull force for reliable cables. However, in practice, failures occur at a much higher tensile strength than the mini- mum required. e first section of this paper reviewed 780 pull force tests provided by NASA that were analyzed to determine how the data compared to NASA's pre-existing requirements from cable/harness standards. e measured ten- sile strength of most of the contact/conduc- tor pairs exceeded the minimum pull force val- ues of NASA-STD-8739.4 and IPC/WHMA- A-620 by at least 100%. e contact/conduc- tor pair samples' tensile strengths followed a normal distribution with an average tensile strength that was at least 182% of the minimum requirement, and all samples analyzed passed pull force testing. In addition, the 95% confi- dence interval of the average tensile strength distributions for several contact/conductor pairs was plotted as error bars to show that the contact/conductor pairs will meet and surpass the requirements. e frequency of pull force testing can be problematic for projects because of the cost and availability of spare contacts for the destructive Analysis of Pull Force Test Results for Crimped Connections Article by Alejandra Constante and Chris Fitzgerald MILLENNIUM, ENGINEERING & INTEGRATION COMPANY ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES, and by Alvin Boutte NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER (GSFC) GREENBELT, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES WHITE PAPER EXCERPT: