Aluminum alloy will force the cable industry

Aluminum alloys have great potential both in terms of production cost and in terms of application, and it is very likely that in the next few years, copper cores will become the new darling of wire and cable manufacturers. On the whole, regardless of the high price of copper materials, or with the construction of a new wave of power grid construction, will give aluminum alloy development opportunities, but also let wire and cable manufacturers find a perfect alternative to copper core, Get rid of the dependence on copper.

In recent years, the high price of copper materials has caused the majority of wire and cable manufacturers to suffer. With the increase in production costs, the meager profits have caused some wire and cable manufacturers to give up. It can even be said that some phenomena such as shoddy, shortage of shorts, shortage of rice and short yards in the market are also inseparably linked to the high price of copper. Based on the principle of benefit-oriented, since the customer's request is a copper-core cable, in order to win more profits, it is only possible to use brains in copper materials. Therefore, doping and wrapping copper are common in the industry.

Of course, in addition to high prices, copper has its own advantages, otherwise it is impossible for China’s wire and cable manufacturers to rely on it. Copper has excellent electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, so that China's wire and cable manufacturing companies indifferent to its enthusiasm, or even just the wire and cable industry, the annual amount of copper accounted for more than 60% of the national amount of copper! However, as we all know, China is not a country with a large copper resource. On the contrary, in China, the lack of copper resources is an unavoidable issue. As a result, copper prices have remained high.

However, in fact, the copper core cable also has its own drawbacks, mainly in the installation is more difficult, the installation cost is high, easy to cause theft, prone to aging, etc., but although the drawbacks are more significant, but because China's wire and cable industry is relatively inert, Do not like or say it is not easy to choose to change the status quo, so the lack of strong companies in the industry research and development of copper core cable alternatives, and will devote more energy to buying copper at low prices. But even if it is to snatch cheaper copper, it is still more expensive than developing a substitute for copper. From a long-term perspective, the development of a new material, thus changing the status of excessive dependence on copper, is one step ahead of the market and a step ahead of other competitors.

In recent years, companies have also invested capital and manpower in the research and development of new materials. They have successively developed aluminum cables, copper clad aluminum, copper clad steel and other products. However, at present, after the market practice, it is still imperfect. Furthermore, due to many reasons such as performance and recycling, the application has been greatly limited, and it has not been able to create a new atmosphere of confrontation with copper and copper balance. However, in view of the objective reality in front of us, the development of new materials that replace copper materials is still a matter of no time! Because China’s wire and cable industry is currently suffering from overcapacity and fierce competition, if it is unable to find and develop new materials with high technological content and excellent performance in place of increasingly expensive copper materials, it will undoubtedly be a wire and cable industry. Constraints. For wire and cable manufacturers, it is undoubtedly a drag, which seriously drags down the profit of the production companies.

Although both the national and the industry are communicating with each other, we believe that with the implementation of projects such as the West-to-East power transmission project and the transformation of power grids and the gradual advancement of urbanization, China’s wire and cable market capacity will be 8%-9. The speed of % has maintained a considerable increase, but if you can't break the excessive dependence on copper materials and can't break the bottleneck of new material R&D, then perhaps China's wire and cable industry should be even more mixed.

Of course, the preliminary application of aluminum alloy cables is likely to break the old and difficult problem of wire and cable manufacturers only "copper". This point, whether it was at the Asian high-end wire and cable summit in 2012 or later in the industry's multiple promotion conferences, showed that the development of aluminum alloy cables is extremely unstoppable and unstoppable. This point can be found in Europe and the United States and other developed countries. Europe and the United States, including the United States, Canada and other wire and cable giants have been using aluminum alloy cable for nearly 40 years, and aluminum alloy cables are also subject to wire and cable due to their good electrical performance and safety performance. Manufacturers and markets are favored. To this end, the United States and Canada have established standards for cable products and formed standardized production.

With the improvement of transmission and transformation technologies and the development of power transmission lines, aluminum alloy wires are increasingly showing their superiority, and they have an exclusive advantage in long distance, large span, and ultra-high voltage transmission. At present, Western Europe, Northern Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries have been widely adopted. Almost 80% of the transmission lines in the United States and France use aluminum alloy wires, and Japan has reached more than 50%. The use of Southeast Asian countries has increased rapidly year by year. The current application in China is less than 1%. Therefore, whether China's wire and cable manufacturing enterprises can find a hammer that can keep the price of raw materials high is not uncommon on aluminum alloy cables, causing widespread interest in the industry.

Wu Changshun, director of the National Wire and Cable Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, once made a detailed introduction to the superiority of aluminum alloys. He said that aluminum alloy conductors are formed by adding trace amounts of iron, silicon, magnesium, rare earth, etc. to aluminum and processing The alloy material greatly improves aluminum bending, corrosion resistance, mechanical processing, heat resistance, mechanical strength, etc., thereby avoiding the problems of unstable connection and low mechanical performance of the pure aluminum conductor cable. Compared with copper cables, its safe ampacity, conductivity and safety, and conductor resistivity, especially cut-off, are completely equal to or even better than traditional copper cables, making up for many deficiencies of hard pure aluminum as cable conductors. , Solved the aluminum alloy cable in the safety performance, electrical performance, mechanical properties and other major technical problems.

In addition to the superior performance, the advantages in cost also make wire and cable manufacturers not to be underestimated. It is reported that conductors, as the main component of power cables, account for 60%-70% of the cost of raw materials for cables in low-voltage power cables. Aluminum alloy cables have obvious advantages in terms of cost compared to copper core cables. In addition, in the same conductive performance, the weight of the aluminum core cable is only 50%-70% of the copper core cable, so it has certain advantages in terms of engineering installation and reducing transportation costs.

In addition, together with China's construction industry, metallurgical industry, chemical industry, etc. are facing greater development and adjustment, as well as the acceleration of urbanization, aluminum alloy cable is a greater business opportunities, large temperature difference in the central and western regions, span Large, long distance, aluminum alloy cable's cost advantage is very obvious. Therefore, from the point of view of national policy, aluminum alloy cables are likely to be replaced by copper core cables as they are developed and continuously optimized.

At present, China has started to formulate relevant national standards and industry standards for aluminum alloy single-wire and aluminum alloy power cables and is currently in the approval stage. After the introduction of the standard, the State Grid, the largest purchaser of wire and cable, will be expected to include aluminum alloy cables in the procurement list, thereby allowing aluminum alloy cables to gain greater room for development.

However, at present, there are only a handful of manufacturers with the ability to produce aluminum alloy cables. The ideal estimate is only about 10 companies. Therefore, the vast majority of wire and cable manufacturers in China correctly understand the superiority and low cost of aluminum alloy cables. How to invest more human and material resources in the research and development and optimization of aluminum alloy cables is an urgent practical issue, and it is even more important to win in the future. The vast market of practical problems!