Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Comparison of SWG (red), AWG (blue) and IEC 60228 (black) wire gauge sizes from 0.03 to 200 mm² to scale on a 1 mm grid – in the SVG file, hover over a size to highlight it. In engineering applications, it is often most convenient to describe a wire in terms of its cross-section area, rather than its diameter, because the cross section is directly proportional to its strength and weight ...
For example, the United States National Electrical Code, Table 310.15(B)(16), specifies that up to three 8 AWG copper wires having a common insulating material (THWN) in a raceway, cable, or direct burial has an ampacity of 50 A when the ambient air is 30 °C, the conductor surface temperature allowed to be 75 °C. A single insulated conductor ...
A wire or cable has a voltage (to neutral) rating and a maximum conductor surface temperature rating. The amount of current a cable or wire can safely carry depends on the installation conditions. The international standard wire sizes are given in the IEC 60228 standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission.
However, any corrosion oxides, chlorides, and sulfides that do form on copper are somewhat conductive. [13] [17] Under many application conditions copper is higher on the galvanic series than other common structural metals, meaning that copper wire is less likely to be corroded in wet conditions. However, any more anodic metals in contact with ...
Sometime around 1913, several copper samples from 14 important refiners and wire manufacturers were analyzed by the U.S. Bureau of Standards. The average resistance of the samples was determined to be 0.15292 Ω for copper wires with a mass of 1 gram of uniform cross section and 1 meter in length at 20 °C. In the United States this is usually ...
Mineral-insulated copper-clad cable is a variety of electrical cable made from copper conductors inside a copper sheath, insulated by inorganic magnesium oxide powder. The name is often abbreviated to MICC or MI cable, and colloquially known as pyro (because the original manufacturer and vendor for this product in the UK was a company called ...
Power cables use stranded copper or aluminum conductors, although small power cables may use solid conductors in sizes of up to 1/0. (For a detailed discussion on copper cables, see: Copper wire and cable.). The cable may include uninsulated conductors used for the circuit neutral or for ground (earth) connection.
If the load is evenly split across the two directions, the current in each direction is half of the total, allowing the use of wire with half the current-carrying capacity. In practice, it is impossible to ensure the load does split evenly, so regulations require a thicker wire, of at least 2/3 the current capacity of the fuse or circuit breaker.