Wire and cable fall into two primary categories: Electrical power and communication.
Electrical power cable
Types of electrical cabling can range from conventional house wiring, high voltage and current wiring for industry, to power transmission lines. Each of the types has a multitude of specialized coverings and sizes based on applications and use. Electrical underground power transmission cables and undersea optical communication cables are at one end of the spectrum for size and protection. Aviation and aerospace are at the other end of durability and specialization.
Communications cable
Data along optical cables transmits electrical signals or data using light rays. Data and communications cables have their standards but also can fall under the same electrical code's references for labeling installations. Communications or data transmission cables designed to transmit data signals are much different than electrical wiring. These cables range from twisted pairs and coaxial for networking, USB for computers, and bundled fiber optic cables for transmitting large volumes of information across greater distances.
Common types of cable
Some of the more common types of cable are named according to end-user requirements. These include:
-
armored cable;
-
sheathed cables;
-
metallic sheathed;
-
coaxial;
-
insulated;
-
NM (non-metallic) cable;
-
UF (underground feeder) cables;
-
underground or undersea cable;
-
electrical vehicle cable (EV);
-
high voltage;
-
submersible;
-
solar; and
-
mining cable
How Are Different Types of Cable Manufactured?
- Optical wire is manufactured by drawing glass into fibers. The glass or optical cable must remain in a semi-molten state at very high temperatures to be drawn and annealed by external heating into thinner individual glass tubes. Metal or copper wire is forced through dies of smaller dimensions and annealed by passing electricity through the metal to create a thinner wire.
Covering
- The process of covering and labeling/coding bare wire and glass filaments is generally quite similar.Some factories draw the metals, primarily copper, and cover it during the drawing process. Most of the methods for covering wire or creating the cables originate with the bare drawn wire and extrude the specialized coverings onto the individual wires, stranded, or bundled cables.
Stranding & Sheathing
- Metallic wire and ribbon fibers require secondary operations for stranding and sheathing. These operations wind or strand multiple wires or optical ribbons into bigger bundles with sheathing and jacketing needed for the final use of the cable.
Labeling/Coding
- Both types of wire and cable, once covered, must be identifiable by color or coding applied to their surface. The standards for these codes are set by multiple organizations internationally and nationally, depending on their end uses.
What are the Standards & Codes Used to Identify Wire and Cable?
- There are seemingly as many different standards guiding wire and cable labeling and installation as there are types of wire and cables. These standards or regulatory codes pertain to labeling the outer jacket during manufacture and installation. Some common standards include:
-
-
UL Certification;
-
Mil-Spec requirements;
-
NFPA and NEC;
-
EIA;
-
TIA;
-
IEEE;
-
NEMA; and
-
SAE standards
-
Let’s take a look at the NEMA standard for PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) insulated wire.