EMPC of aluminium wire and copper terminal for electric vehicles

ABSTRACT

Electric vehicle is one of the important development directions of the automotive industry, with a broad prospect. The high-voltage wire harness plays a key role in the power system for electric vehicle. Aluminum wire harness was proposed to be crimped with the copper terminal instead of the copper wire harness, which can decrease the weight and the cost. This work proposes an electromagnetic pulse crimping technology to connect the aluminum wire harness and copper terminal of electric vehicle. A 28 kJ electromagnetic pulse crimping system for crimping aluminum wire harness and copper terminal was established and the reliable joints were obtained and tested. The microstructure analysis results show that the connection interface has a corrugated morphology, and there was no obvious effect on the plating during the high-speed collision. The energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis results show that there was metal element diffusion in the connection interface. The testing results show that the joints with good electrical performance can be obtained, which can promote the realization of the aluminum wire harness instead of the copper wire harness. This work can provide technical reference and theoretical support for the development of high-voltage wire harnesses for electric vehicle.

KEYWORDS:

• Electric
• vehicle
• electromagnetic
• pulse
• crimping
• aluminum
• copper
• wire
• harness
• terminal
• microstructure
• plating

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Graduate Scientific Research and Innovation Foundation of Chongqing [CYS22147, CYS22029].