Bus bar protection is generally aluminum, copper and brass strips which conduct electricity within a battery ban, substation, distribution board or a switchboard. These bars are very common in systems for distributing power. They conduct current but they are not part of the structure.
The higher the cross sectional area of the bars the higher the amount of current they can carry. Smalls bars have areas of up to 10mm by 10mm while those found in substations have tubes with 50 mm diameters or even more. Larger bars such as those used in aluminum smelters can carry tens of thousands of amperes. In aluminum smelters current is carried to electrochemical cells where molten salts are used to make aluminum.
Bars are made either from hollow tubes or flat strips. These shapes are well suited to dissipate heat efficiently because of their large surface area to cross section ratio. Bus bars which are about 8mm thick are inefficient to carry 50-60 Hz AC power because of skin effect. Flat and hollow shapes are therefore prevalent in high power interruption protection. Hollow sections have more stiffness that solid ones of equivalent power carrying capacity. This allows a wider span between the supports of the bus bars in switch yards which are outdoors.
A bus bar can be completely surrounded by insulators or it can be supported on them. A bus bar is protected from unintentional contact by a metallic enclosure which is earthed or by keeping them high enough. Earth bus bars are usually bare and mounted directly on metal chassis in their enclosures while neutral bus bars are insulated. A bus bar may be enclosed in a housing made out of metal in the form of isolated-phase bus, segregated-phase bus or bus duct.
Bus bars are usually connected to each other and to electrical devices by welded, clamp and bolted connections. Joints which are between bus sections which have high current are usually designed to have matching surfaces. These surfaces are usually plated with silver to reduce contact resistance.
In power interruption protection more than 300kV create radio frequency interference and loss of power due to the corona around connections. To avoid this connection fittings are made for such voltages. Some bus bars are fitted with voltage temperature sensors to monitor temperature of the connection and send it to a digital meter.
Switch gears as well as panel boards are some of the places you will encounter bus bar protection. Power is split into many circuits from the distribution board. Bus ways on the other hand do not use one location to branch off circuits. Circuits can split from any location along the long bars which are also referred to as bus ducts.
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