Several common cable jacket materials and advantages and disadvantages

The cable jacket is the outermost layer of the cable and serves as the most important barrier to the safety of the internal structure in the cable. To protect cable is not mechanically damaged during and after installation.

There are many types of cable jackets, and the choice of cable sheathing materials should take into account the compatibility of the connectors and the adaptability to the environment.

For example, an extremely cold environment may require a cable jacket that remains flexible at very low temperatures. 

Typical characteristics of some of the most common sheath types are listed below:

1: PVC Material（Polyvinyl chloride)

Due to its excellent electrical insulation properties, the PVC material is widely used in cable and wire.

Advantages:

1) Mature manufacturing technology, easy to shape and manufacture, compared with other types of cable materials, low cost, good flexibility, wear resistance, not easy to be scratched. And the surface of the wire can be effectively controlled in terms of color difference, mattress, printing, processing efficiency, and mechanical and physical properties and electrical properties of the wire itself.

2) Excellent flame retardant performance.

3) Temperature resistance: through material optimization and improvement, the limit temperature of commonly used PVC material can reach up to 105℃.

4) Rated voltage: generally used with rated voltage of 1000V AC or below, it can be widely used in household appliances, instruments, lighting equipment, network communication, etc

Disadvantages:

PVC material contains a lot of chlorine, has a pungent odor, will emit a lot of smoke when burning and produce some harmful substances and gases to the environment and human body.

There are many problems when applied to special environments. With the enhancement of people's environmental awareness and the improvement of material performance requirements and the development of low-smoke halogen-free materials manufacturing technology, low-smoke halogen-free materials have gradually replaced PVC.

2: PE Material

Due to its excellent electrical insulation and good processing performance, polyethylene is widely used as the coating material of electric wires and cables, mainly used in the insulation layer and sheath layer of electric wires and cables.

Advantages:

1) Improve the heat deformation resistance, improve the mechanical properties at high temperatures, and improve the resistance to environmental stress cracking and heat aging.

2)Enhanced chemical resistance and solvent resistance, reduced cold flow and maintained the original electrical performance, long-term working temperature up to 125 ° C and 150 ° C.

3) Excellent mechanical, waterproof and radiation resistance.

Disadvantages:

1) The heat-resistant blocking property is poor. When the wire is processed at a temperature exceeding the rated temperature of the wire, it is easy to cause the wires to stick to each other, which may cause the insulation to break the skin and form a short circuit.

2) The color difference between batches is difficult to control. The process is easy to scratch, white, and print off.

3) There are still some bottlenecks in manufacturing technology, and the cost is high.

3: PUR Material

Widely used in industrial machinery and equipment, transmission and transmission control system, all kinds of industrial sensors, testing instruments, electronic instruments, household appliances, mechanical and electrical equipment, kitchen and other equipment, used in harsh environment oil proof and other occasions of power supply, signal connection.

Advantages:

PUR material cable has excellent oil resistance, good toughness, wear resistance, cold resistance (low-temperature resistance), waterproof, aging resistance, acid and alkali resistance, long service life, UV resistance, and many other excellent functions. It is suitable for oil stains and extremely low-temperature environments. 

Disadvantages:

1) Very high cost

2) High-temperature resistance and easy loss: in the case of high temperature, its tensile strength, tear strength and oil resistance will decrease with the increase of temperature, and the general working temperature is 80-90℃.

4: TPE/TPR Material

Advantages:

1) Excellent processing performance, excellent colorability, excellent low-temperature performance, good chemical and oil resistance, and very flexible and wear-resistant.

2) Safe, non-toxic, no odor, no irritation to human skin.

3) It can be recycled to reduce cost.

Disadvantages:

1) Not resistant to oil, not resistant to dirt, not wearable.

2) As the temperature rises, the physical property decreases and the plastic deformation increases.

5: TPU Material

TPU material cable applications include marine application cables, industrial robots, and robot cables, port machinery and gantry haulage cables, mining engineering machinery cables, etc.

Advantages:

1) High mechanical strength: TPU cable line bearing capacity, impact resistance and shock absorption performance outstanding.

2)Excellent cold resistance: maintains good elasticity, flexibility, and other physical properties at -35℃.

3)Good processing performance: TPU can be processed by common thermoplastic processing methods such as injection molding, extrusion, calendering, etc.

4)Environmentally friendly materials, hardness range (60HA-85HD), wear-resistant, oil-resistant, transparent, good elasticity.

Disadvantages:

1) Bad formability

2) Poor hydrolysis resistance and weather resistance.

6: Silicone rubber Material

Silicone cable is commonly used in medical equipment.

Advantages:

1) very soft, good elasticity, tasteless and non-toxic, not afraid of high temperature and cold resistance. The operating temperature range is -90~300℃.

2) Excellent weather resistance. Over a long period under ultraviolet radiation and other climatic conditions, its physical properties have only small changes.

3) Silicone rubber has high resistivity and its resistance value remains stable over a wide range of temperature and frequency. At the same time, silicone rubber has good resistance to high voltage corona discharge and arc discharge.

Disadvantages:

1) Poor tear resistance. In the process of processing or using, it is extruded by an external force, easy to be damaged by scraping and grinding, resulting in a short circuit. The current protection measures are in addition to silicone insulation with glass fiber or high-temperature polyester fiber braided layer, but in the process of processing still need to avoid the damage caused by external force extrusion.

2) vulcanizing agent to be added for vulcanizing molding, containing chlorine element.

Completely halogen-free vulcanization agents (such as platinum vulcanization) require strict production environment temperature and are expensive.

Therefore, the mechanical properties of the equipment, the working environment and the cost of the cable should be fully considered when selecting the cable material.