Underwater electrical cable terminations

Underwater connectors used for U.S. Navy sonar programs must be of high reliability and are usually of the MIL-C-2417 type. However, in several of the recent U.S. Navy programs conducted by Bendix Electrodynamics, this type of connector was not suitable. In the case of an expendable sonar system, these connectors were too expensive; for a neutrally buoyant array sonar, they were too large and heavy. This paper presents two recent designs developed by The Bendix Corporation, Electrodynamics Division to provide high reliability connectors that met the cost, space, and weight requirements for the aforementioned two types of sonar systems.