Thoughts on potential safety hazards caused by "copper clad aluminum" phenomenon

Author：hlyb Add Time：2016-04-02 11:27:01

With the continuous growth of copper consumption in China and the increasing lack of copper resources in China*** Recently, due to the rapid rise in the price of copper, there have been products with unqualified cable diameter and cross-sectional area in the wire and cable market, as well as fake and shoddy products using miscellaneous copper.

Harm brought by "copper clad aluminum"

With the emergence of these fake and shoddy products, the normal order of the market has been disturbed. In particular, copper-clad aluminum products, such as using copper-clad aluminum instead of copper wire, will bring potential safety hazards to the products, which is a harmful behavior for users. The reporter learned that in the national regulations, the copper part of the wire is not allowed to be replaced by aluminum wire. Because the resistance of aluminum is greater than that of copper, if the wire is overheated when energized, aluminum with a lower melting point than copper is easier to melt. At this time, it is easy to have a short circuit of wires and cause a fire. In a humid environment, aluminum is more prone to oxidation than copper. At this time, the resistance becomes larger, and a long power on time will also melt aluminum and cause fire. In addition, because the conductivity of aluminum is worse than that of copper and the resistance is large, the loss of current in the circuit is large, which is very easy to cause a waste of electricity. Obviously, copper cannot be replaced by copper-clad aluminum.

Reflection on "copper clad aluminum phenomenon"

"Copper clad aluminum phenomenon" is worthy of vigilance. Industry insiders said that "copper clad aluminum phenomenon" is only the "tip of the iceberg" of many problems caused by the rise in the price of raw materials. Although copper clad aluminum wire has advantages, it combines the good characteristics of two metals, with light weight and low price. However, most copper-clad aluminum wires are applied from the perspective of "replacing aluminum". It is not a concept of "saving copper" to "replace" the places where aluminum is not used well (generally copper accounts for 10% of the wire section). At present, the price of copper is too high, the price of aluminum is cheap and the threshold is low. Driven by interests, some manufacturers have a somewhat dangerous tendency, that is, blind and overheated development of copper-clad aluminum products. Some enterprises even actively reduce the amount of copper and replace copper with copper-clad aluminum, which is undesirable.

It is worth mentioning that some users only consider the price advantage of copper-clad aluminum and measure the performance of products with the price of products. This has given some enterprises loopholes and shoddy goods. Cheap is an advantage, but blind use of cheap products will lead to some loopholes in the use process, resulting in an irreparable situation. Some users don't even know how to identify copper and copper-clad aluminum products, and there are mistakes in purchase. Inferior copper-clad aluminum products will not affect the project quality, and substitutes will also have a substantial impact on copper consumption.

Maintain the normal order of wire and cable Market

Facing the phenomenon of "copper clad aluminum", how can we ensure the normal order of wire and cable market. Fan Zaiyun, director of wire and cable professional committee of China Electrotechnical Society, said: at present, copper-clad aluminum is overheated and needs to think calmly. The problem of copper clad aluminum needs to be treated with caution and a scientific attitude. I think we should prevent the excessive promotion of copper-clad aluminum driven by interests; Limited promotion and rational promotion are more in line with China's actual situation. In addition, the national government has begun to pay attention to the awareness of environmental protection cables. It has not only formulated relevant environmental protection policies, but also shut down a number of enterprises with high energy consumption and serious pollution.

In addition, enterprises also need to save materials, use more environmentally friendly materials and processes, and use less materials and processes with great pollution hazards. The cable industry is a copper consuming industry. It is precisely because the cable industry uses more copper that the world's copper resources are tight and the copper price fluctuates*** The fundamental problem is to improve the level of industry modernization, which is the basis of building industry circular economy. To improve the modernization level of the cable industry, we first need to make structural adjustment. Compared with other industries, the structural adjustment of cable industry is more urgent.

Concluding remarks

The phenomenon of copper clad aluminum is not only a social problem of cracking down on counterfeiting, but also a matter of government functional departments. If the social moral level of the public rises to a certain extent, fake and shoddy products will also lose the soil for existence. At the same time, the state also needs to develop circular economy, protect the ecological environment, reduce copper energy consumption and resist the blind shock of copper price, so as to curb the substantive impact of fake and shoddy products on copper.

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Thoughts on potential safety hazards caused by "copper clad aluminum" phenomenon