Inconel 601 bus bars

[andymcl]

There is a built battery supplier here in Australia (builds from GFB cells with local assembly) using Inconel 601 bus bars. First I've heard of this. Anyone know of this being used before? From what I can work out Inconel 601 has a higher resistivity than copper.

 

[RCinFLA]

Copper grades

C101 - 99.99% copper 0.0005% oxygen, high electrical grade
C110 - 99.90% copper 0.04% oxygen, most common
C122 - 99.90% copper 0.02% oxygen, deoxidized with phosphorus, most copper tubing and pipes

You will not notice the difference between C101 and C110 in bus bars.

Nickel plating should be used to prevent inter-metallics galvanic interaction with aluminum cell terminals which can erode and pit aluminum surfaces over time degrading terminal connections. The nickel plating degrades bus bar resistance by about 10-15% but long-term benefit outweighs degradation.

Best realistic connection resistance for each cell terminal is close to the same resistance as the copper bus bar with nickel plating and is about 0.05 milliohms. Typical nickel-plated copper bus bar is about 0.07 milliohms, so you get 0.05 + 0.07 +0.05 = 0.17 milliohm resistance between cell terminals.

Beware of nickel-plated brass bus bars provided by many cell sellers. They are about 0.2 milliohms just for bus bar.

 

[toms]

There is a built battery supplier here in Australia (builds from GFB cells with local assembly) using Inconel 601 bus bars. First I've heard of this. Anyone know of this being used before? From what I can work out Inconel 601 has a higher resistivity than copper.

Sure won’t have corrosion issues! As long as the area of the busbar supports the required current i don’t see a problem.

 

[740GLE]

Do they specialize in marine batteries? May have the inconel on hand or a supplier that can make them easy enough.

 

[RCinFLA]

When corrosion is of ultimate importance but seems to me the limiting factor will still be the aluminum cell terminals for corrosion.

Chromium is a little worse resistivity than tin.
Nickel is a little worse than aluminum.

Based on alloy mix the result should be very close to resistance of nickel plated brass bus bar for same size bus bar. Just need about 3x cross sectional area to equal nickel plated copper bus bar. From their picture looks like most of the cross sectional area increase is in wider bus bars.

I still think any marine salt water will eventually undermine the aluminum cell terminals, even when using spot welding, so I question the benefit. The bus bars will just fall off cells once underlying aluminum terminal surface corrodes.

 

[JimJr]

Just dropping this here for clarification.

Electrical Conductivity of Materials - Blue Sea Systems

Engineering high quality marine electrical components for safety, reliability and performance

www.bluesea.com

 

[Zil]

Reading about Inconel 601, it is not designed for electrical conductivity.

 

[Prefersdirt]

I don't know about electrical conductivity - but from working with it, Inconel is designed for high temperature operations (aircraft).

 

[RV10flyer]

I don't know about electrical conductivity - but from working with it, Inconel is designed for high temperature operations (aircraft).

I used to weld jet engine parts made of various Inconels.