Curved or bent multilayer arrangement for conductor rails

Details Curved or bent multilayer arrangement for conductor rails Curved or bent multilayer arrangement for conductor rails

1999-12-01

2001-10-02

Reichard, Dean A. (Department: 2831)

Electricity: conductors and insulators

Conduits, cables or conductors

Bus bars or bus ducts

C174S08800C, C174S14900R, C439S212000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06297452

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an arrangement for multilayer electrical conductor rails, and more particularly to a curved or bent multilayer arrangement for conductor rails comprising several electrically conductive strips separated by layers of insulating materials.
At the present time, conductor rails are used with increasing frequency in a large number of technological fields. These rails are also entering new domains, such as, for example, the automotive field. Such conductor rails (also termed “bus bars”) are formed of electrical conductors in the form of strips or sheets each separated from each other by insulating layers. For this purpose, relatively thin sheet material is used as the insulating layer in order to ensure that the final assembly of conductors is comparatively compact. When the conductor rails are manufactured, it is the case in a number of applications that they need to be bent sharply or curved. If the curve radius at an elbow in the rail is too small for standard bus bars, or if, due to the fact that there are several different superimposed layers, when a rail is curved, the outer layers are subjected to high levels of stretching, thereby causing electrical problems at the point where the rail bends sharply. The insulating layers may be stretched and become excessively thin, with the result that breakdown voltage may occur between the conductors separated by the insulating layer, which may in turn, due to generation of heat or the formation of sparks, in addition to the formation of ozone, damage or even destroy the insulating layer, to a point where short-circuits may occur.
Each of the outer faces of assembled rails should preferably be provided with a thin layer of electrical insulation. The external insulation is thus complete in the area of the bend in the rail and must be arranged in a manner ensuring the elimination of all air.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is intended to perfect the arrangements of electrical conductor rails of the type described above in the introduction, in such a manner as to allow problem-free manufacture and fitting, even in cases where the rail is bent sharply with a very small radius of curvature, and to avoid prejudicing proper operation of such conductor rail arrangements in future use.
The above objectives are achieved by a curved or bent multilayer arrangement for conductor rails comprising several electrically conductive strips separated by layers of insulating material and characterized by the fact that the conductive strips possess, along the line of the fold in the rail a number of windows arranged in a manner ensuring that the windows of one strip are staggered with respect to those of another, and in which those same windows are sized to ensure that no conductive strip overlays another on the line of the fold.
The fundamental concept underlying the present invention is the avoidance, in the area of an elbow in the conductor rail arrangement, of a configuration in which several conductive strips are overlaid, surrounding a layer of insulation which may become stretched or compressed. For this reason windows are cut into the conductive strips, these windows being staggered in each strip with respect to those of any other strip. The result is that any portion of a strip located between two windows is invariably aligned opposite a window in the sheet placed immediately above it.
The invention is described in greater detail below by means of a description of one embodiment and with reference to the drawings. The latter show the following:


REFERENCES:
patent: 3818119 (1974-06-01), Sutherland et al.
patent: 5038257 (1991-08-01), Agabekov
patent: 5672070 (1997-09-01), Weiss
patent: 9113471.4 (1992-02-01), None
patent: 9104651.3 (1992-06-01), None
patent: 29805493U1 (1998-07-01), None
patent: 2298954 (1996-09-01), None

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