Thermally produced deformation of the electrical current carrying connection beams in the electrolysis cell

With the increase in the electrical power of the aluminum electrolysis cell grows also the internal heat produced, and this may cause the expansion of the cathode blocks and implicitly the deformation of the cathode bars. To decrease the risk of breaking of welding with the flexible beam, along with finding ways and means to dissipate the heat in excess, one solution is to modify the current design of the flexible connections. Consequently we investigate the thermally induced stress-strain within the flexible beam, and the couplings between the current flow, Joule heating and heat transfer within the flexible beam, and thermal expansion.