Computerized bus-bar joint preliminary design

Contact resistance of bus-bar joints (contacts) plays the major role in joints performance which leads us to study and evaluate such contact resistance and the factors affecting it. In this work, a mathematical model, for the bus-bar joint, has been implemented in order to predict temperature distribution along and beside the contact, based on the evaluation of heat generation as a function of time. Based on the above, the life time of the bus-bar system was then calculated versus loading current joint length and clamping force. The results indicated that increasing joint length and clamping force, up to certain limits, would improve joint performance. The mathematical model results have been experimentally verified using a test bus-bar system. The obtained analytical results were in a good agreement with the experimental results