Reducing contact resistance of high current connectors on electric vehicle by controlling contact pressure and addition of plating material

Abstract

This paper studies on contact resistance on copper busbar connection relative to plating materials, plating thickness, and contact pressure. This study is important because busbar connection plays an important role on electric distribution performance. A good busbar connection would have low contact resistance, therefore low energy losses and better reliability. In this study, the sample are busbar connection without plating, busbar connection with zinc plating, busbar connection with nickel plating, and busbar connection with silver plating. First aspect that is going to be tested is contact resistance measurement without load on each. The next test is contact resistance measurement with DC load of 9, 18, and 27 A. Each test is conducted with the contact pressure variation of 5.6, 7.0, dan 8.4 MPa, and with plating thickness of 5, 15, and 25 μm. The result shows that busbar connection with 5 μm silver plating have much lower contact resistance compared to all the other configuration.