JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #94 - January/February 2015 - 33

The C7 Overhead Conductor is engineered to combine high performance,
excellent value and the toughness and
durability needed to deliver at least a 40year service-life expectancy. It has already

Focus
Thermoplastic composite brings seven important benefits. Designed for utilities that need
greater flexibility, reliability and ease of installation, the C7 Overhead Conductor offers seven
key advantages:
5.Engineered material - The only all-ther1. Minimal thermal expansion - Lowest
moplastic composite core in the world
level available in a composite core;
with high-temperature continuous-use
minimal sag increase at high power
and emergency-service rating (180 to
transfer, allowing more energy to be
225°C).
transmitted over the same lines.
6. Multiple conductor designs - Tailorable
2. Low weight - High strength/weight
for installation requirements, from light
ratio; reduces structural loads on towers;
to heavy ice loads, normal to long spans,
allows strength-member cores to carry
and numerous conductor constructions
more aluminium, which permits higher
including trapezoidal wire (TW),
power density and more efficient power
aluminium zirconium (AlZr) and O-temper
transmission.
versions.
3. Multi-element core - Greater bending
7. Use of conventional connectors -
tolerance; no single point of failure as
Traditional, crew-friendly, two-piece
with monolithic constructs.
compression fittings allows customers to
4. Flexible and robust - Installs like traditioseamlessly integrate the new conductor
nal conductor without the need for special
on existing structures and foundations
training or equipment; engineered to withusing standard line tools.
stand the rigours of installation; designed
to provide a 40-plus year service life.

passed rigorous conductor and strand
testing at Southwire's Cofer Technology
Center as well as nationally-recognized
independent laboratories in the USA,
such as Kinetrics and the National
Electric Energy Testing Research and
Applications Center (NEETRAC). The
new conductor has passed the most demanding conductor test designed to date,
the conductor sequential mechanical test,
which simulates installation, galloping,
vibration and mechanical loading as a
conductor would experience in the field.
In addition to extensive field testing at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak
Ridge, Tenn., USA), it has been installed
on multiple power-conducting utility
lines.

Better for industry,
consumers, the planet
The combination of advanced engineered
materials and unsurpassed design expertise used in the C7 Overhead Conductor
represents a step change in overhead
conductor design. This results in distinct
performance and life-cycle economic
advantages versus traditional ACSR
products. Because the new conductor

was specifically designed to help utilities
looking to increase right-of-way capacity
without the expense of putting up new
infrastructure, its use can save utilities
billions of euros in infrastructure design,
build and modification costs, as well as
new property easement/land acquisition
costs. Its high performance also makes
crossing challenging terrain easier, since
fewer and lower towers are needed to
carry the same conductor. Fewer and
lower towers also prove beneficial in
visually-sensitive areas such as roadways
and congested urban areas. Because it
also reduces conductor power losses,
transmission is more efficient, meaning more billable power is delivered to
customers. These savings directly benefit
power consumers while lowering the environmental impact of the world's power
transmission network. And this helps
ensure that today's grid upgrades are better prepared to meet future demand. n
More information:
www.celanese.com/engineeredmaterials/products/Celstran-CFRT.aspx
www.southwire.com/transmission/c7.htm

No94 January - February 2015 /

Feature Carbon

wire and cable producers with over 70
years of conductor design experience, and
Celanese Corp. (Dallas, Texas, USA), a
global thermoplastic resin and composites producer - have worked extensively
to develop a completely new type of
HTLS conductor, called C7™Overhead
Conductor. This multi-strand carbon
fibre-reinforced composite core conductor was launched commercially this year
at the April T&D show in Chicago and
is constructed of thermoplastic materials
that have been broadly used for decades
in high-performance aerospace, industrial and automotive applications. The
stranded thermoplastic-composite core
provides greater flexibility and bending
radius than a monolithic core, and this
increases reliability and redundancy
during both installation and long-term
use. The product's advanced carbon
fibre-reinforced polyphenylene sulphide
(PPS) core with polyetheretherketone
(PEEK) coating (cap layer) provides a
high thermal rating (180°C continuous
use and 225°C emergency use), helping to maximize energy throughput.
The tough PEEK cap layer provides the
core strand with very high resistance to
chemicals, heat, galvanic corrosion and
abrasion. The C7 Overhead Conductor is
designed to provide the high ampacities
while minimizing line losses. It provides
nearly twice the transmission capacity
of a traditional ACSR conductor of the
same diameter. Further, the new conductor has been designed to be installation
friendly. It has the same bending radius as
traditional ACSR products, which means
installation equipment does not have to
be up-sized as with other composite core
products owing to their larger bending
radius requirements. The use of two-piece
compression fittings also reduces training
time and increases crew familiarity with
the installation process, a key consideration for error-free installation.

jec composites magazine 33

http://www.celanese.com/engineered-materials/products/Celstran-CFRT.aspx http://www.southwire.com/transmission/c7.htm

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #94 - January/February 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #94 - January/February 2015