Indal Handbook For Aluminium Busbar May 2026

A 50m outdoor busbar run in Rajasthan (temperature swing: 5°C to 48°C) had no expansion joints. After 6 months, the busbar buckled 75mm out of plane. Lesson: Install an expansion joint every 10m or for cumulative temperature differences exceeding 40°C.

Critical: The Indal Handbook warns against over-torquing. Aluminium creeps under sustained high pressure, causing bolt loosening over time. This counterintuitive fact (over-tightening leads to slackness) is a cornerstone of Indal’s joint design philosophy. Indal Handbook For Aluminium Busbar

---

Aluminium has about 61% of the conductivity of copper. To carry the same current, an aluminium busbar needs a cross-sectional area approximately 1.6 times larger than a copper busbar. While this increases the size of the busbar, the handbook highlights that the weight of the aluminium busbar will still be roughly half that of the copper equivalent, leading to easier handling and lighter support structures. A 50m outdoor busbar run in Rajasthan (temperature