In recent years, with the emergence of copper-clad aluminum cables, the originally expensive price of pure copper cables has become popular, which has promoted the development of China’s wire and cable industry in a certain sense. Copper-clad aluminum is a concentrically coated copper layer on the surface of aluminum or aluminum/steel alloy core material, which is made by drawing, and the thickness of the copper layer is above 0.55mm. What are the differences between copper-clad aluminum cables and pure copper cables in terms of performance, what are the advantages and what are the shortcomings?
In terms of mechanical properties, the strength and elongation of pure copper conductors are larger than that of copper-clad aluminum conductors, which means that pure copper is better than copper-clad aluminum in terms of mechanical properties. From the point of view of cable design, the advantages of good mechanical strength of pure copper conductors than copper clad aluminum conductors are not necessarily needed in practical applications. Copper-clad aluminum conductor is much lighter than pure copper, so the overall weight of copper-clad aluminum cable is lighter than pure copper conductor cable, which will bring convenience to the transportation of the cable and the erection and construction of the cable. In addition, copper-clad aluminum is a little softer than pure copper, and cables produced with copper-clad aluminum conductors are better than pure copper cables in terms of softness.
In terms of electrical performance, because the conductivity of aluminum is worse than that of copper, the DC resistance of the copper-clad aluminum conductor is larger than that of the pure copper conductor. Whether this has an impact depends on whether the cable will be used for power supply, such as providing power to the amplifier. If it is used for power supply, the copper-clad aluminum conductor will cause additional power consumption and the voltage will be reduced more. When the frequency exceeds 5MHz, the AC resistance attenuation at this time is not significantly different under the two different conductors. Of course, this is mainly because of the skin effect of high frequency current, the higher the frequency, the closer the current flow is to the surface of the conductor, the surface of the copper-clad aluminum conductor is actually pure copper material, when the frequency is high to a certain point, the entire current plated in the copper material inside the flow. At 5MHz, the current flows in a thickness of about 0.025 mm near the surface, while the copper layer of the copper-clad aluminum conductor is about twice as thick. For coaxial cables, because the transmitted signal is above 5MHz, the transmission effect of copper-clad aluminum conductors and pure copper conductors is the same. The attenuation of the cable in the actual test can prove this.
From the economic side, copper-clad aluminum conductors are sold by weight, and pure copper conductors are also sold by weight, and the price of copper-clad aluminum conductors is more expensive than pure copper conductors of the same weight. However, the same weight of copper-clad aluminum is much longer than the length of the pure copper conductor, and the cable is calculated by length. The same weight copper-clad aluminum cable is 2.5 times the length of the copper wire, and the price is only a few hundred yuan more per ton. Taken together, copper-clad aluminum cables are very advantageous. Because the copper-clad aluminum cable produced by Asia Cable is relatively light, the transportation cost and installation cost of the cable will be reduced, which will bring certain convenience to the construction.
Copper-clad aluminum cable is also a good way to relieve the current enterprise pressure, the bimetallic wire made of a layer of copper drawn outside the aluminum wire, because of its small proportion, good transmission performance and other advantages, especially suitable for doing the inner conductor of RF coaxial cable, compared with pure copper wire, its density is about 40% of pure copper. The transmission characteristics are better than pure copper wire, which is the most ideal RF coaxial cable branch line conductor.
Post time: Dec-04-2023