Buss bars for corrosive environment

[ocean ng]

I am going to design buss bars which are used in corrosive environment. Are there any suggestions for the materials or treatment that make the bars resist corrsion better?

 

The buss bars are used in small circuit system about 40-50A, and the size is about 25mm X 150mm X 3mm.

 

Thanks for any advices.

[marke]

Hello ocean ng

 

There are a number of factors that determine just what you wil use and how you will treat it.

The first is what sort of corrosive environment is it??

 

The normal material used for bus bars is copper, and the accepted methods of protecting the copper is to either tin the copper, or to plate the copper. There are a number of metals that you can plate on to the copper that will protect it, but it is dependent on the environment.

 

Another material that can be used for busbars is aluminium. Many people are affraid of using aluminium for busbars, but it does work well and is lighter than copper.

Aluminium self protects agains some corrosive environments because it forms a corrosion resistant oxide layer. (This is also an insulator)

You can increase the corrosion resistance of the aluminium by anodizing. This is a very hard oxide layer and is also an insulator. You must be careful not to anodise the connections, or remove the anodising from those areas.

Another surface preparation is to Alodine or bonderize the aluminium. This gives a goldy coloured appearence and is a chromate type coating. This is electrically conductive, but for low resistance joints, the best thing to do is to polish the connection surface and imediately coat that surface with a jointing grease.

 

Have a good day,

Best regards,

[ocean ng]

Thank you very much for your advices.

 

I will consider the methods you described.