Multiple Cavity Parts

The Contact_point in the KBL allows the referencing of an unspecified number of Part_usage_selects in the role Associated_parts. This implementation guideline clarifies the valid use cases of multiplicities > 1.

For a standard contacting (the “90% case”), the Associated_parts association references a single Terminal_occurrence and an (optional) Cavity_seal_occurrence for sealed contacting situations.

Chapter 2.2 of the KBL Recommendation Document (V2.5) already defines:

The Contact_point specifies a single contacting variant. This means that the contacting is manufactured, as specified in the KBL. Either all participants (Cavities, Terminals, Seals, Wires) set into a relationship by the Contact_point exist in a specific harness or none. There is no requirement, to filter the participants of a contacting situation with information derived from Module_configurations in order to create a manufacturing variant.

The Contact_point represents a single potential. As a consequence, all cavities and wires referencing / being referenced by a Contact_point are short-circuited and have the same potential (even if the signals on the wires are named differently.

In other words, using the Associated_parts to represent a 150% contacting situation is not a valid approach in the KBL. However, there are still remaining situations, where more components than one Terminal_occurrence (and one Cavity_seal_occurrence) participate in a specific contacting situation. The representation of those cases in the KBL depends on the role that the components have in the contacting sitation.

• Multiple Terminal_occurrence and/or Cavity_seal_occurrence are valid, provided all the components of the respective class have a conducting (terminal) or sealing function and they always occur together (100%). Illustrations for such cases can be found on the right.
• All other components (e.g. wire fixations, damping elements) have to be represented as an Accessory_occurrence to the primary terminal component.

The representation is illustrated the following figure. Reasons for choosing this representation where:

1. It is aligned with the representation in the VEC, which defines individual classifications for those components (WireEndAccessorySpecification & CavityAccessorySpecification)
2. Representing those “accessories” as regular Associated_parts would mislead existing established sanity checks (e.g. the existence of a Cavity_seal_occurrence would raise the question why only one contact in the connector was sealed.)