Electric wire or cable

Abstract

There is provided an aluminum-alloy material having sufficient electric conductivity and tensile strength as a wiring material and excellent in wire-drawing property, and an electric wire or cable using the same. An electric wire or cable includes an aluminum-alloy strand formed of an aluminum-alloy including Fe: 0.1% by mass or more to less than 1.0% by mass, Zr: 0 to 0.08% by mass, Si: 0.02 to 2.8% by mass, at least one of Cu: 0.05 to 0.63% by mass and Mg: 0.04 to 0.45% by mass, and the remainder being aluminum and unavoidable impurities.

Claims

1. A method for producing an aluminum-alloy strand from an aluminum-alloy comprising: Fe: .[.0.1% by mass or more to less than 1.0% by mass.]. .Iadd. 0.4 to 0.8% by mass.Iaddend.; Zr: .[.0.]. .Iadd.0.02 .Iaddend.to 0.08% by mass; Si: 0.02 to 2.8% by mass; at least one of Cu: 0.05 to 0.63% by mass and Mg: 0.04 to 0.45% by mass; and the remainder being aluminum and unavoidable impurities, the method comprising the steps of: (1) forming a wire rod using the aluminum-alloy; (2) wire-drawing the wire rod.Iadd., .Iaddend.without a thermal treatment .Iadd.before the wire-drawing or in midstream of the wire-drawing, .Iaddend.until becoming a desired final wire diameter; and (3) continuously annealing or batch-wise annealing the .Iadd.wire-drawn .Iaddend.wire rod .[.which has been wire-drawn.]. .Iadd.to produce the aluminum-alloy strand.Iaddend..

.Iadd.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the desired final wire diameter is 0.07 mm to 1.5 mm..Iaddend.

.Iadd.3. The method of claim 1, wherein the desired final wire diameter is 0.14 mm to 0.5 mm..Iaddend.

.Iadd.4. The method of claim 1, wherein the unavoidable impurities are 0.07% or less by mass..Iaddend.

.Iadd.5. The method of claim 1, wherein the unavoidable impurities are 0.05% or less by mass..Iaddend.

.Iadd.6. The method of claim 1, wherein the wire-drawing is performed using a dry wire-drawing machine..Iaddend.

.Iadd.7. The method of claim 1, wherein the wire-drawing is performed using a wet wire-drawing machine..Iaddend.

.Iadd.8. The method of claim 1, wherein the forming is performed by a continuous casting and rolling method..Iaddend.

.Iadd.9. The method of claim 8, wherein the rolling of the continuous casting and rolling method is hot rolling..Iaddend.

.Iadd.10. The method of claim 8, wherein the rolling of the continuous casting and rolling method is cold rolling..Iaddend.

.Iadd.11. The method of claim 1, wherein the forming is performed by an extrusion method..Iaddend.

Description

EXAMPLES

(1) The following will explain the present invention in detail with reference to Examples, but the invention is not limited thereto.

Examples and Comparative Examples

(2) Using a first-class aluminum base metal of JIS H 2102, prescribed amounts of Fe, Zr, Si, and Cu or Mg were added thereto to obtain each aluminum-alloy having a component composition shown in Table 1. This is melted by a usual method and processed into a wire rod having a diameter of 9.5 mm by a continuous casting and rolling method.

(3) Then, the wire rod was wire-drawn using a continuous wire-drawing machine to obtain a wire material (thin wire) having a diameter of 0.32 mm. The wire material was subjected to continuous annealing to produce an aluminum-alloy strand.

(4) For the obtained aluminum-alloy strand having a wire diameter of 0.32 mm, the following properties were evaluated in accordance with JIS C 3002. As for the electric conductivity, resistivity thereof was measured in a constant-temperature bath kept at 20 C. (0.5 C.) using a four-terminal method and the electric conductivity was calculated. The distance between the terminals was 1000 mm. The tensile strength and elongation ratio were measured at a tensile rate of 50 mm/minutes.

(5) Furthermore, as evaluation of the wire-drawing property, the number of times of wire breaking was counted at the production of the strand from 1 ton of the wire rod and the wire-breaking property was evaluated as follows: the case of 5 times/ton or less is marked good and the case of 6 to 9 times/ton is marked moderate, and the case of 10 times or more/ton is marked bad.

(6) The obtained results are shown in Table 1.

(7) TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Electric Tensile Elongation Zr Fe Si Cu Mg conductivity strength ratio Wire-breaking NO. [wt %] % IACS MPa % property Example 1 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.06 60.6 81 28 good 2 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.03 60.8 80 29 good 3 0.08 0.1 0.02 0.06 58.2 82 24 good 4 0.08 0.1 0.02 0.03 58.3 80 29 good 5 0.02 0.9 0.02 0.06 59.4 121 17 good 6 0.02 0.9 0.02 0.03 59.6 120 17 good 7 0.02 0.1 2.3 0.06 58.5 195 11 good 8 0.02 0.1 2.3 0.03 58.6 194 11 good 9 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.45 58.3 112 15 good 10 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.35 58.0 115 17 good 11 0.05 0.6 0.02 0.12 58.3 111 18 good 12 0.05 0.6 0.02 0.05 58.6 107 21 good 13 0.03 0.8 0.02 0.2 58.3 127 16 good 14 0.03 0.8 0.02 0.1 58.7 122 17 good 15 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.05 0.04 60.4 85 23 good 16 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.2 0.2 58.1 114 23 good 17 0.08 0.1 0.02 0.05 0.03 58.0 84 23 good 18 0.02 0.9 0.02 0.08 0.08 58.6 131 16 good 19 0.1 0.02 0.05 61.5 80 24 good 20 0.1 0.02 0.63 58.0 126 23 good 21 0.1 0.02 0.04 61.5 80 18 good 22 0.1 0.02 0.45 58.0 126 23 good 23 0.1 0.02 0.55 0.05 58.1 126 20 good 24 0.1 0.02 0.02 0.02 61.5 80 18 good Comparative 1 0.1 0.1 0.02 0.06 57.4 82 24 good Example 2 0.1 0.1 0.02 0.03 57.5 80 29 good 3 0.05 1.1 0.02 0.12 57.5 136 13 moderate 4 0.05 1.2 0.02 0.05 57.7 137 11 moderate 5 0.02 0.1 3 0.06 57.8 230 8 bad 6 0.02 0.1 3 0.03 57.9 229 9 bad 7 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.6 57.4 124 17 good 8 0.02 0.1 0.02 0.4 57.6 121 16 good

(8) The aluminum-alloy strands of Examples were excellent in all of electric conductivity, tensile strength, elongation property, and wire-drawing property. Thus, it is confirmed that they can be preferably used as electric wires or cables for automobiles.

(9) On the other hand, the aluminum-alloy strands of Comparative Examples could not achieve desired electric conductivity. Moreover, it was found that the elongation property was low as compared with Examples. Furthermore, since the aluminum-alloy strands of Comparative Examples were poor in wire-drawing property, wire breaking occurred 10 times/ton or more during the production process.

(10) The present application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-159549 filed on Jul. 6, 2009, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

(11) Since the electric wire or cable of the invention contains an aluminum-alloy strand excellent in electric conductivity, tensile strength, and elongation property although the strand is light in weight, it can be suitably utilized particularly for wire harness for automobiles.