Why Are Copper Wire Cables So Commonly Used?

Copper is one of the most commonly used metals in various industries. This beautiful reddish metal was one of the very first metals to be ever extracted from the earth.

Copper is a soft, malleable (having the capability of being extended or shaped) and ductile metal. This means that it can be turned into many different shapes by applying force, such as hammering, or by applying pressure without breaking it.

In olden times, copper was used to make coins and ornaments. While the metal is still used to make ornaments, it sure would be hard to find copper coins anymore. The use of copper has now been extended to many other areas, like machinery, transport equipments, building, construction, electrical cables, electronics, and more.

Here’s a fun fact - the famous Statue of Liberty represents the largest use of copper in a single structure. For use in the statue, about 80 tons of copper was cut and hammered to a thickness of 2 US pennies.

The Indian Side

Copper production in India is only about 2% of the world’s production. It is still within the first 20 countries of the world. It is counted among the largest importers, and is in line with countries such as China, Japan, etc.

Some of the famous copper mines are Khetri copper belt in Rajasthan, Singhbhum copper belt in Jharkhand and Malanjkhand copper belt in Madhya Pradesh.

Electrical copper wires

Approximately 20% of the extracted copper is utilised to make electrical copper wires. Now why is this so?

There are many reasons why copper is preferred over other metals and alloys for electrical wires.

The main reason why copper is used to make electrical wires is it dissipates waste heat energy at terminations and connections. It is an efficacious conductor of electricity. Unlike other metals, it does not expand while heated, whereas other metals like aluminium expand when heated.

Then there is the creep resistance issue. Many a times, any metal under the situation of mechanical stress tends to get permanently deformed. This leads to loosening of terminations and heating up of connections, which can cause serious damage. The wondrous metal copper has excellent creep characteristics which minimizes these damages.

Now comes corrosion resistance. Corrosion is the unwanted breakdown of metal due to oxidisation over a period of time. Copper is one of those metals that don’t corrode easily. It is higher on the galvanic series than other common structural metals. It resists humidity, moisture, industrial pollution, etc.

There are other metals which can be used to replace copper wires, such as gold and silver, etc. But these metals are very expensive to be used as wires. These are generally used to make ornaments.

Electrical wires are important in daily life and are required in extremely large quantities. Wire producing companies use copper to make Copper Wire Cables for this purpose as it is available abundantly in nature and is cheaply available as compared to metals like gold.

These qualities make copper the best option for industrialists to use copper while producing electricity cables.