Alternative materials reduce wiring harness weight - Aluminium: the alternate conductor

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Alternative materials reduce wiring harness weight - Aluminium: the alternate conductor

Bauer, Petra

Aluminum cable systems are a cost-effective and a lightweight wiring alter-native, that offers up to 48 % mass reduction compared to traditional copper core cable. Approximately one kilogram of aluminum can replace 2 kilograms of copper, providing equal conductivity. They enable improved fuel economy due to mass savings and lighter, easier vehicle assembly, while reducing the susceptibility to copper commodity volatility. Aluminum cable is larger than copper cable due to the greater cross section of aluminum required, but achieving the same conductivity. This paper talks about the need of weight reduction in the automotive sector and the corresponding activities and proposals for the automotive wiring harness. It shows the segmentation of the different wire gauges and the impact of technical changes, such as introduction of 0,13 mm² wires and aluminum as conductive material. Introducing aluminum into wiring applications needs special attention to issues like corrosion, packaging and connection systems. This paper shows technical solutions for different wire gauges. Further on it reports on real life fleet tests and summarizes the already available results. A range of aluminum cable sizes is already available, depending on the intended application: Primary cable: 0,75 to 2,5 mm², Power cable/Battery cable: 3,0 to 85,0 mm².