Bolted joints are a commonly used connection type to join electrical conductors. They are used in electrical power supply networks and increasingly in electrical vehicles and have to carry operating currents of typically several hundred ampere. So far, there are no uniform design criteria or guidelines for practical electrical applications. Several standards and publications give recommendations for the electrical design but have not been proven mathematically proof far. Since a correct design is crucial for a stable long-term behaviour, uniform rules should be applied. In this paper, a design method is presented that is based on mathematically describable relationships between mechanical and electrical parameters. It is shown that this additional calculation step can be used in conjunction
with the guidelines for the mechanical requirements to design high stressed bolted joints systematically. Furthermore,
findings on the design of the contact surface, the use of joining elements as well as on the limiting temperatures
of materials are given. Overall, physical findings on the aging of current-carrying bolted joints from over
40 years of research are presented compactly.