Marine Power Distribution: 

The Role of Copper Bus Bar in Marine Vessels

Whether used for power generation, charging, electric propulsion, or logistics, marine bus bar plays a powerful role in ship power distribution.

Since most equipment, machines and systems used on ships operate electrically, the demand for superior marine power distribution remains a continual focus.

The type of marine bus bar needed is dependent on the type of vessel, required machinery and its electrical propulsion. Since the main switchboard is the primary power distribution system and center of the ship, the main bus bars are located in the lowest portion of this switchboard to ensure protective insulation and support.

Marine bus bar within the main switchboard serves multiple auxiliaries, such as voltmeters, watt meters, ammeters, etc.

Copper bus bar is most commonly used in marine power distribution due to:

•Hardness

•Lasting and Reliable Quality

•Cost-Effectiveness

•Resistance to Mechanical Damage and Corrosion

•High Mechanical Strength in Compression, Shear and Tension

•Good Conductivity with Terminals and Other Typically Copper Components

•Low stray inductance

Key consideration in 

bus bar design for naval ship power system

Differentiated from normal inverter and normal converter, ship power converter operates always under critically bad working conditions which include high power density, harsh working environment, long full-load operation time, and electrochemical corrosion.

These challenges require laminated bus bars to have very high reliability to meet various naval vessel working environments.

Major consideration of bus bar design includes but not limit stray inductance mitigation, stress carrying capacity, and necessary Ingress Protection Rating against dust and humidity. 

Why choose bus bars for 

your submarine DC fast charging module?

Silent submarines are designed to operate quietly, making them harder to detect by enemy sonar systems. Stealth technologies, applied to submarines, reduce or eliminate noise emissions and other detectable signals that might give away their position.

Recharging submarine's lithium-ion battery pack under DC fast charging mode to maximize the reduction of the submarine's surfacing charging time is an optional stealth technology.

The overall power transforming efficiency of DC charging module is about 95% at present in the best case, with the main losses resulting from power conversion, cables （and or bus bar）, and transformers.

In high power systems, such as DC fast charging module, even a 1% power loss will generate a large amount of heat, which has to be dissipated by thermal management module to avoid being detected by enemy.

After optimization, a customized laminated bus bar for DC fast charging module, can not only meet the performance requirements but also minimize stray inductance in commutation circuit.

In the meantime, an optimized laminated bus bar should be able to suppress and minimize spike voltage. 

Why choose NORTHBRIDGES bus bars for 

your Ship Power System?

Benefit from our vast knowledge and experience on laminated bus bar designs for different harsh operation environments, NORTHBRIDGES supplier has solved the technical challenges and delivered various solutions to meet the specific power distribution applications ranging from diesel-electric submarine, naval supply ship.

Our partnership supplier keeps developing and manufacturing laminated bus bar to both naval diesel-electric submarine power system and naval supply ship power system since 2009.

An example of our multiple solutions for a submarine power system.

The Capacitor bus bar used Edge-sealed design to ensure the Creepage Distance and Minimum Clearance, while greatly reduced bus bar inductance. The IGBT bus bar used epoxy-powder painted design, which enhanced the electrical performance, especially increased puncture voltage resistance.