General Cable, Highland Heights, Ky., last month introduced an addition to its BICC brand bare overhead conductor line called TransPowr TW. Engineering Director Dennis Doss III says the Aluminum Conductor Steel-Supported/Trapezoidal Wire (ACSS/TW) de sign's fully annealed "O"-temper aluminum "causes most or all of the mechanical load to be transferred to the steel core," allowing the conductor to "operate continuously at more than twice the accepted temperature limit of [conventional aluminum conductor steel-reinforcedACSR] with significantly less sag." Higher temperature means the conductor can carry more current.
The Dept. of Energy and 3M Corp., St. Paul, Minn., are testing a conductor design that uses a core of aluminum-matrix-composite wires surrounded by temperature-resistant aluminum-zirconium wires. 3M calls it Aluminum Conductor Composite-Reinforced, or ACCR.