M A Y 2 0 1 4
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2 1
NEWS
C
elanese Corp. (Dallas, Texas) and Southwire Co. LLC
(Carrollton, Ga.), North America's largest wire and cable
producer, have introduced a new option for utility trans-
mission lines: the C
7
Overhead Conductor. The C
7
features a
lightweight, high strength-to-weight, multi-element compos-
ite core of Celstran continuous fber-reinforced thermoplastic
rods (CFR-TPR), made by Celanese.
Codeveloped by Celanese and Southwire, the conductor ca-
ble reportedly nearly doubles the transmission capacity of,
yet exhibits less sag than, an aluminum conductor steel-rein-
forced (ACSR) of the same diameter. Mark Lancaster, South-
wire's director of overhead transmission engineering, says
the technology behind C
7
was six years in the making and
represents a step-change in overhead wire and cable design
and engineering. The goal, he says, was to develop a product
for utilities that need to increase right-of-way capacity with-
out the expense of erecting new infrastructure. Line sag, he
says, is the largest limiting factor in how much current can
be passed through a utility line. "We wanted to increase ca-
pacity of the right of way over the same equipment." Report-
edly, C
7
not only increases capacity, but also provides cost-
avoidance benefts by obviating the need for new towers and
poles, which would be a necessary if capacity increases were
attempted with conventional steel-cored conductor cables. C
7
offers performance benefts and a strong value proposition
for reconductoring applications as well, allowing for higher
performance and emergency service rating of lines.
Michael Ruby, global composites business manager at Cel-
anese, says, "This combination of ma-
Carbon fber-reinforced thermoplastic
cores new power transmission cable
(continued on p. 23)
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H i g h T e m p e r a t u r e B o n d T o o l s
• BMI
• Epoxy
M i l l F i x t u r e s
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r e s s u r e I n t e n s i f i e r s / C a u l s
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a c k u p S t r u c t u r e M a t e r i a l s
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B a c k u p S t r u c t u r e K i t s
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O
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G
6262 W. 34th Street South ● Wichita, KS 67215
Phone: 316-946-5900 ● Email: Sales@BurnhamCS.com
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Source
(both
images):
Southwire
Co.
0514HPC New&Briefs-OK.indd; 21 4/22/2014 2:56:08 PM