LAUSR

Abstract Crimping of lugs to wire strands is a crucial part in electrical power transmission process. Improper design increases the resistance of current flow through terminals and causes problems like power loss, spark and heating in the joint. Which affect many industries like shipping, automobile, aerospace, satellite and communication where cable connections are used in large quantities. Electricity distribution boards faces similar problems during generation due to improper connection. To overcome these problems in conventional crimping process a new novel technique for effective wire crimping has been proposed in this paper. A strong pulsed electromagnetic (EM) field is used in wire crimping of aluminium connector terminal with copper wire. Experiments are carried out at different discharge voltages to demonstrates the feasibility of EM wire crimping process and to study the properties. With developed method, positive results were found from EM crimped samples. The gap between aluminium connector terminal and copper wire was reduced by 70% than conventional process. The electrical resistance of EM process was decreased by 34% than conventional one. Its pullout strength is 978 N higher. The surface finish is improved as mean roughness value of 0.8 μm. The hardness was reached up to 47 HV0.1. X- ray diffraction (XRD) technique was used to find the residual stresses in EM and conventional crimped samples. Thermal behavior is improved over conventional crimped process.