Brief application of AAC conductors in engineering

China's electrical industry from 1957 to 1973, has developed the aluminum row, aluminum wire, aluminum wire, cable insulation, aluminum wire, steel and aluminum trolley wire, aluminum and aluminum-clad steel wire flexible cable, and other products, have made it big achievement, the proportion accounted for conductor AAAC conductor with the total amount raised to over 60%. Into the mid-1990s, some advocacy organizations to promote, promote the great copper cables monopolize the market trend. Today, the amount of aaac conductor has repeatedly declined, can not but ponder.

Chinese copper demand ratio exceeds 70 percent of the need to rely on imports, and the supply of copper concentrate in China is not 30%, which is far higher than the degree of external dependence on China's iron ore and oil and driven by domestic demand, China has become the world's the largest consumer of copper in 2006, China's copper consumption totaled 4,000,000 tons, accounting for about 22 percent of global supply. Currently, most copper cables are imported from abroad, and foreign mineral companies compete for a monopoly to raise prices, resulting in the high cost of building electrical.

Conversely, China has proven reserves of 3.7 billion tons of bauxite. In such a situation of mineral resources, trying to import copper respected spared no expense, rather than own rich aluminum resources, make their European counterparts did not understand. The French cable industry has said that France does not produce copper and aluminum-rich resources, the French power cables, more than 60% of the aaac conductor, and get Electricite de France (EDF) recognition.

With the development of science and technology, high-quality, high-tech aluminum materials to be developed, coupled with the world's poor status of the resource-rich copper aluminum, copper prices are now more than three times the price of aluminum (copper about 60,000 yuan/ton, aluminum about 17,000 yuan/ton), "aluminum and copper" has become a natural choice. 

Foreign research and application of aaac conductor, the United States, and Canada to develop an AA8000 series of electrical grade aluminum as a conductor material. The United States, "National Electrical Code" version NEC2008 310.14 provisions: 8AWG, 10AWG, 12AWG cross-section (equivalent to the domestic 8.37mm2,5.26mm2,3.332mm2) solid conductor should AA8000 series of electrical grade aluminum material; Stranded conductors from 8AWG to 1000Kcmil (equivalent to the domestic 506.7mm2) should also be AA8000 series of electrical grade aluminum alloy conductor material.

"Aluminum and copper" may be a new era of selecting a new cable and a new beginning.