Wires made of copper-based alloy with good electrical conductivity and high strength

For certain tasks, wires with high electrical power are used conductivity and at the same time high strength properties are required. Wires made of pure copper, the best of all electrical conductors used industrially, are generally not suitable for this because their mechanical strength is too low. On the other hand, wires made from “ISA-CON” from Isabellenhütte, which optimally combines both properties, are ideal.

The brand name ISA-CON stands for copper-based alloys, which are manufactured in the form of wires. At the heart of the production program are currently the material types ISA-CON414 and ISA-CON1000. The designations consist of the brand name and the minimum tensile strength in MPa *. Both alloys have a significantly higher tensile strength than copper with 200 MPa, although the tensile strength of the ISA-CON1000 wires is even higher than that of wires made of the copper-clad stainless steel "Staku", which is about 700 MPa. The other important property is the electrical conductivity: with pure copper it is 58 x 10⁶ S / m, which equates to 100% IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard). The ISA-CON 414 material comes very close to copper when annealed with 90% IACS, and the ISA-CON1000 high-strength material, with 60% IACS, is also well above the widely used Staku wires with 40% IACS.

ISA-CON414 is a RoHS-compliant material that can replace similar but cadmium-containing materials. It meets the requirements of the ASTM B624 standard ("Standard Specification for High-Strength, High-Conductivity Copper-Alloy Wire for Electronic Application"). The high-strength material ISA-CON1000 contains the alloying elements silver and zirconium.

Wires made of both materials can absorb high tensile loads elastically, have a high hardness, are corrosion resistant and retain their properties even at higher temperatures over long periods of use. It is also advantageous for certain tasks that the wires can be coated with nickel, tin or silver.

Wires made of ISA-CON are supplied in the form of round wire and strands with a diameter from 0,05 to 0,3 mm. Wires made of ISA-CON414 are also used as puller wire with 0,80 to 1,20 mm. Typical applications include signal and overhead lines for railways and automotive cables. Under the pressure to save space and weight, the automotive industry, among other things, requires conductor wires with a diameter as small as possible, but at the same time they must be able to reliably meet ever-increasing demands with regard to load capacity and required service life. The same applies to the likewise made of wire contact elements for plugs and switches.