Exploring wire-arc additive manufactured rivets for joining hybrid electrical busbars

This paper presents a joining by plastic deformation process for fabricating hybrid electrical busbars made from copper and aluminum sheets. The process comprises the innovative use of wire-arc additive manufacturing to deposit copper rivets at specific locations on the copper sheets, the machining of slots with the required geometry in the aluminum sheets, and the compression of the copper sheets to force the rivets into the pre-machined slots of the aluminum sheets, creating form-closed mechanical interlocks. The work combines experimentation and finite element modeling to analyze the influence of the most significant process parameters, and the electrical performance of the hybrid busbar joints is evaluated and compared to that of conventional fastened joints at different service temperatures. Results demonstrate the effectiveness and potential advantages of the new joining by plastic deformation process for fabricating hybrid electrical busbars.