The Ultimate Guide on the Selection of Earth Bars

By Arianna Metal Components Date posted: August 17, 2021 Last updated: August 28, 2021

In electrical earthing and grounding applications, you may have often seen the use of different earth bars, but you need to have a complete safe earthing system with the right choice of earth bar.

The following article is written to provide you some basic information and adequate guidance to choose the best suitable earth bars for your application.

Earth Bars: Electric Safeguard

Earth Bar (also known as earth strip) is most common electrical component with simple and sturdy construction. It is a solid metal plate with multiple threaded holes and a standard screw connection. It is most widely used to provide a common electrical earth point connection and integral disconnection for easy isolation.

The importance of Earth Bars

The earth bar is an important electrical component when it comes to electrical wiring, system, and installation safety because when systems are located at different points, an unexpected electrical event or accident can lead to danger.

Protects Against Electrical Overloads: Lightning strikes during severe weather conditions can completely damage your electrical appliances and system. These events can generate dangerously prominent levels of electricity, to protect your devices from large electrical surges, you need to choose an earth strip that has a high current carrying capacity.
Stabilizes the Voltage Levels: When you are earthing an electrical system, it is important to ensure that it distributes the right amount of electricity to all locations and that the circuits are not overloaded at any time. The right choice of earth bars maintain current/voltage level throughout the electric system.
Conducts with Least Resistance: One of the primary reasons for earthing your electrical devices is that the earth is a great conductor and can handle all of the extra electricity with little resistance. When you ground the electrical system, it means that you are giving extra electricity to go somewhere without resistance instead of passing electricity through the devices.
Prevents Serious Damage and Death: Due to electrical overload, an electrical accident can occur at any time which can cause severe damage to your devices along with you. If you do not choose the right earth bar for earthing, you will put your appliances and even your life at high risk.

After basic overview and importance of earth bars, let’s have a look at some of the different earth bar types.

Types of Earth Bars:

Earth Bars are classified based on their structure design such as the number of connections they provide, material from which they are made, size, and type of fixing accessories (screw, nut, washer), termination options, number, and position of disconnecting links, with or without mounting base, and other dimensional specification (length, width & thickness).

Let’s explore some of the classified types of earth bars typically encountered in the most of the industry today.

Copper Earth Bars: Copper earth bars are the most popular and preferred for earthing and grounding application, because of their unique properties and affordable price. Copper earth bars are an ideal earthing option for outdoor applications, marine, and offshore industries.
Tinned Copper Earth Bars: Tinned copper bars maintain the conductive integrity for electrical engineering applications; as of its material which is enhancing the protection against atmospheric conditions such as elevated temperature, humidity, rust, etc. It works best in water utility applications such as waste-water treatment plants.
Telecommunication Earth Bars: This type of earth bar specially used to provide common earthing point within the telecommunications systems and equipment. Telecommunication earth bars are mostly made from copper material that provides mechanical strength, low impedance path to earth, and able to carry the maximum fault condition for telecom systems and equipment to the earth.
Earth Bar with Single Disconnecting Link: Earth bars with a single disconnection link offer a temporary break in the connection to earth allowing the testing and isolation of multiple earth rod systems. It is made up of bare copper, tinned copper, or traditional galvanized steel channel.
Earth Bar with Twin Disconnecting Links: This type of earth bars design and manufacture for special earthing applications. Earth Bar with twin disconnecting links mostly offered with a powder-coated base and standard connections that provide anti-corrosion solutions and reliable/easy installation.

Where are Earth Bars mostly used?

Earth bars are used to provide a convenient common earthing point for electrical installations requiring an earthing & lightning protection system.
Used in external/outdoors applications or where atmospheric conditions are more severe and aggressive than normal such as high moisture content areas, high humidity in both onshore and offshore projects.
Earth bars could be used in external applications or where atmospheric conditions are more severe than normal.
Earth bars are widely used for connecting wires for electrical meters.
Earth bars are used to protect you from an electric shock.

The Most Important Factors to Weigh When Selecting Earth Bars

Consider the relationship between expected the best value from your earth bars. We have covered the topmost crucial factors to consider before selecting the earth bars. Let’s take a look:

Performance: You should choose earth bars for any type of electrical and earthing application that will provide high reliability and effective performance as expected and will not fail when it is most critical and needed. The proper selection of earth bars allows utilities to meet their respective requirements and improve application performance.
Flexibility: In an era where we try to save money and time, it is more important than ever to focus on the selecting the right earth bars which can be flexible and used to perform a variety of earthing requirements. There are such standard earth bars that are perfect to be utilized in various applications instead of using unique.
Durability: Time and cost are key factors but in cases where it is hard to strike a compromise between the two, the durability of the earth bars comes into the fame. Assessing the durability of an earth bar will help to select the right earth bars for a longer lifetime.
Compatibility: This is a factor that is closely related to the application for which you require to use the earth bars. Compatibility is the most important when it comes to electric or earthing applications. The wrong selection or incompatible earth bars do not provide the required performance and could even damage the complete electric wiring or circuits.
Cost: This is one of the common and crucial factors for the right earth bars selection. However, keep in mind that the cost should not be considered in isolation because it is linked to the performance of earth bars. You must strike a balance between the cost and performance of earth bars because it is unrealistic to produce extremely cheap earth bars that do not perform to the expected level.

Apart from the highlighted above, size, configuration, surface finish, reliability and material of earth bars are also important as well as helpful in choosing the right earth bars. So, if you are looking for earth bars; keep in mind that these factors are inversely proportional to each other, and may be forced to make a compromise in order to find the right earth bars for your application.

To ensure the right and standard earth bars, you need advanced manufacturer of earth bars like Arianna Metal Components. Let us help ensure you are using the right earth bar for your electric earthing or grounding application. Contact us today to learn more about custom earth bars for your next project.