CHAPTER 14

Manufacture of General Wiring Cables

GENERAL FEATURES OF MANUFACTURING FACILITIES

The very wide range of applications and the consequent large variety of cable types, and
the variety of materials used, create a complex situation for the provision of
manufacturing facilities. Because of this the general wiring cable factory employs a
larger number of processing techniques than other more specialised cable plants. The
considerable size range, which includes cables from a few millimetres to a hundred or
more millimetres in diameter, is a further complication because of the range of machine
sizes which must be provided to carry out any particular operation.
Volume of production may also vary a good deal, so that manufacturing facilities
must on the one hand be versatile and flexible enough to cater for short production runs
and on the other hand be capable of dealing with large volume production. Often these
requirements result in several types of plant existing in the same factory to carry out a
particular process.
However, factories may vary considerably in their degree of specialisation. At one
extreme is the purpose designed factory to achieve maximum economic advantage from
rationalisation of cable types and materials, and optimum use of mechanical handling,
with automatic control and virtually continuous output. At the other is the factory
making cables for various applications, using many different materials and a wide range
of plant, which enables it to react quickly to changes in pattern of demand. Commonly
the manufacturing facilities within and between factories are grouped according to
whether the cables produced have thermoset or thermoplastic coverings.
MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
As a consequence of the range and variety of general wiring cables, a large number of
processes are used for cable manufacture. These can be grouped as:
(a) conductor forming, i.e. wire drawing and annealing, wire coating (tinning and
plating), bunching and stranding;
(b) insulating and sheathing, which consist mainly of the various techniques of
extrusion appropriate to the characteristics of the material used, but also include
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tape and yarn wrapping and braiding; with thermoset materials there is also,
essentially, a vulcanising, i.e. crosslinking, operation;
(c) assembly, including laying-up of cores, taping, braiding and armouring.
Many of the cable manufacturing processes have common principles and are described
in chapter 25. Emphasis is therefore placed here on those especially associated with
general wiring cables.

Conductor forming
Conductors for general wiring cables are characterised by the high proportion of small
diameter wires used. In wire drawing there is a predominance of multi-wire machines
using natural and synthetic diamond dies for the smaller sizes. Copper rod is drawn to
wire in stages, the wire being annealed continuously.
Tin coating of copper wire is usually carried out in association with wire drawing, the
tin being applied by electroplating. In modern high speed production units, which
combine drawing and annealing in-line, on an almost continuous basis, the tin may be
applied on the input wire. In the case of nickel-coated conductors, used in cables for
high temperatures, the nickel is usually electroplated on the final wire size, although it
is sometimes applied by cladding in which a composite copper-nickel billet is drawn
into wire.
The introduction of multihead wire drawing machinery has taken the conductor
forming process a step further. Nineteen- and 24-wire multiwire machines are now
available. The purity of the copper rod, in particular the absence of oxide impurities,
has to be very high to achieve good results with this configuration. Twelve- and 16-wire
machines are more common, the wires being split (2 x 6, 2 x 8) on to separate bobbins
or directly into high speed double twist machines making unilay strands (bunches).
The conductor assembly operations of bunching and stranding have the common
principle of twisting, as used in rope making. The methods used are decided by the
small size and large numbers of wires which make up flexible conductors. For the
bunching and stranding operations, which are used to produce the majority of
conductors for flexible cords and cables, four principal types of machine are used, the
elements of which are as follows.
(a) The reels containing the single wires are held in fixed frames or 'creels', the wire
being drawn through a fixed guide and a forming die and then passing via a
rotating arm or 'bow' to the take-up reel, which rotates about its own axis. The
action imparts two twists to the wire for each revolution of the bow. This is the high
speed double twist machine. A modified version of this machine is used to
manufacture the high quality formation-stranded conductors required for cores
with low radial thicknesses of insulation.
(b) The reels are held in fixed frames or 'creels', the wire being drawn through a fixed
guide and a forming die by a take-up reel which rotates about its own axis and also
about the principal axis of the machine. This machine is the drum twisting buncher.
(c) The wire reels are carried on a rotating cradle, as in a stranding machine (chapter 25).
However, no attempt is made to lay the wires in a definite geometric pattern as in
stranding, the wires being gathered in a bunch in the forming die.

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257

(d) The reels containing the single wires are supported within a rotating cage. The reels
remain stationary in space, the necessary twisting action being imparted by the cage,
to which the wires are attached by guides. This is the tubular stranding machine.
There are variations of these machines, imparting differing degrees of twist to the
individual wires. The types of machine in (a) and (d) give the higher production speeds
but are usually limited to the small and medium conductor sizes. The larger flexible
conductors can be made on the machines described in (b) and (c), or by further bunching
processes using any of the bunching methods (multi-bunch conductors). Flexible
conductors of the 'rope stranded' type (chapter 4) are made on stranding machines.
The above machines differ in scale, depending on the size and length of conductor
to be produced. The considerable lengths of conductor necessary for high speed
continuous covering operations have resulted in the development of improved process
handling techniques. These include the 'spinning off' of wire from stationary reels,
where wire is thrown over the flange of a reel by a rotating guide, the reel being placed
with its axis parallel to the direction of wire travel. Alternatively the reel may be placed
flange down and the wire 'spun off' vertically.

Insulating and sheathing

The fundamental components of an extrusion line for rubber and thermoplastic cable
coverings are indicated in fig. 14.1 (see also chapter 25). Over the years, there has been
some rationalisation of extruder design. Whereas early machines for use with
thermoplastics were distinctly different from those for rubber, those now in use are
similar for both types of material, with only minor differences in design and operation.
The introduction of high temperature vulcanising techniques and high performance
rubbers has contributed to this trend.
For small-scale jobbing work, the smaller and more versatile extruders tend to be
used, though larger machines may be required for sheathing. Large extruders with high
output are used for insulation on high speed lines for large volume production. Twin or
triple extruders with a combined head are now relatively common and are used for high
voltage cores requiring the simultaneous application of screens with the insulation, for
multilayer insulation, and for applying insulation and sheath on single-core cables such
as welding cables.
Extrusion lines, particularly the high speed lines for thermoplastics such as PVC and
PE, now have a high degree of instrumentation and automatic control, in respect of
both the performance of the line units and the physical characteristics of the product.
For example, eccentricity and diameter of insulation can be monitored continuously.

9
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Fig. 14.1 Typical layout of cable extrusion line with (1) input drum, (2) capstan wheel,
(3) extruder, (4) cooling trough, (5) spark tester, (6) diameter gauge, (7) eccentricity gauge,
(8) capstan wheel, (9) tension controller and (10) output drum

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Electrical testing of the insulation, by application of high voltage, is also carried out
in-line. Tension control is usually effected automatically, and on bulk production lines
there is mechanical handling for input materials and processed wire and cable, together
with provision for continuous running by changing input and output drums whilst the
line is operating normally. Tandemisation of the extrusion process with other processes
is a common feature of the manufacture of wiring cables which enables a more
cost effective approach for bulk production. In certain cases it has been possible to
combine wire drawing, insulation extrusion, laying-up and oversheathing in one
continuous operation.
In principle, high temperature polymers are processed in the same way as described
above. Silicone rubber is extruded similarly to other rubber compounds, although it can
be applied in liquid form. 1
Fluoropolymers such as FEP and ETFE are thermoplastic and (like polyethylene)
have a well defined melting point. They are therefore melt extruded 2 similarly to PE.
Because of their relatively high melting temperatures, special heat-resistant alloys are
needed for some components of the extruder. PTFE is an exceptional case as it is
not truly thermoplastic, owing to its very high molecular weight. Screw extrusion
cannot be used because it results in shearing of the polymer particles. Instead, the
powdered polymer is blended with a suitable liquid lubricant, formed into a billet, and
then applied to the wire by a ram extruder. The lubricant is subsequently evaporated
off in an oven, and the temperature of the cable is then raised to 400C, causing
the polymer particles to coalesce. The process is analogous to the forming of powdered
metals and ceramics by sintering. The sintering oven is usually placed in line with
the extruder.

Curing (crosslinking)
In the chemical process of crosslinking, or vulcanisation as it has usually been termed
with rubber, the modification of the polymer matrix in thermoset materials is initiated
by heating the covering after extrusion. It may be at atmospheric or high pressure.
Originally the treatment was a batch process, with the uncured cores or cables
supported in trays containing powdered chalk or talc, or contained in tightly wrapped
textile tapes or within a lead sheath and wound on a steel cylinder. The trays or
cylinders were heated by pressurised steam in an autoclave. Subsequently the tapes or
lead sheath were removed, if not required as a final component of the cable. This
practice still survives for short length production of cables with certain rubber
polymers, such as PCP and CSP.
A commonly used high temperature method is that of continuous vulcanisation (CV)
carried out by means of high pressure steam (14-25 bar) contained in a tube into which
the extruded covering passes directly. Introduced in the 1940s in a horizontal
arrangement (HCV), as an alternative to the steam autoclave method for the bulk
production of small cores and cables, it has since been further developed for larger
diameter cores and cables in a category arrangement (CCV), and for the largest
products in a vertical form (VCV). 3 The coverings of general wiring cables are generally
smaller in volume than, say, distribution and transmission cables and consequently
higher extrusion speeds are possible, particularly when insulating.
As crosslinking by chemical means is time and temperature dependent, greater
throughput from a CV line involves the use of higher temperatures or a longer steam

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259

pressure tube. Steam as a heating medium has a disadvantage in this context, as large
increases in steam pressure are required to gain only modest increases in temperature.
Alternative heat transfer fluids have therefore come into use. Molten salt baths
(LCM) at atmospheric pressure are now widely used for continuous curing of sheaths.
Besides providing a convenient means of high temperature heating, they overcome
other disadvantages of steam CV. The LCM system utilises a relatively deep bath of salt
into which the cable is dipped, thus eliminating the restrictive CV tube which can cause
damage when the cable makes contact with it. Also the cable is accessible as soon as it
leaves the extruder, so that there is a considerable reduction in scrap at the beginning
and end o f each cable run compared with long CV lines.
However, because of operation at atmospheric pressure, porosity of the covering is a
problem. Porosity is due to volatile substances, principally moisture, in the compound
and is suppressed in the high pressure environment in a steam CV tube. By special
formulation this porosity can be almost entirely eliminated in sheath compounds, and
the salt bath technique has been found most useful for sheathing, especially for cables
which could not be satisfactorily processed by steam CV, e.g. large multicore signalling
cables. Insulation compounds cannot be processed in this way, however, as the special
formulations render the electrical characteristics unsatisfactory.
More recently, the problems of porosity in the crosslinked material have been tackled
by combining some of the features of LCM and high pressure steam CV. This approach
uses what is called a 'pressurised liquid salt continuous vulcanisation system' (PLCV). 4'5
In this system molten salt is circulated through a vulcanising tube which is similar in
arrangement to the steam HCV tube but much shorter. Because of the density of the
molten salt, many cables are relatively buoyant and contact with the CV tube can be
eliminated. This reduces the problems with the control of tension in the cable, which
occur in all steam CV lines, so that a wider range of cables can be processed. The
vulcanising tube is pressurised using air or an inert gas such as nitrogen, depending on
whether oxidation of the compound is a hazard. The gas pressure system is independently
controlled and is varied to suit the product. The pressure may be up to about 7 bar.
Other 'dry' vulcanising systems (see also chapter 25) have been used, e.g. nitrogen
alone as both heat transfer and pressuring medium, with the addition o f infrared
heating. 6 Many polymers can be crosslinked without the use o f chemicals and heat,
by means of electron beam irradiation. 7 So far, because of cost, this method has
found application mainly for specialised cables for the communication, electronic and
aircraft industries.
Silicone rubber coverings are commonly cured in hot air continuous vulcanising
tubes. To develop maximum performance they may be subject to a second (or post)
cure in a hot air oven as a batch operation, to eliminate the volatile products of the
crosslinking reaction.
The introduction of the Sioplas and Monosil processes (described in chapter 3) has
seen a more general return to batch curing. As pointed out in chapter 24, the silane
crosslinking technique allows greater flexibility and much improved running speeds at
the extruder, with a useful reduction in scrap levels (compared with long steam pressure
lines). Used initially for curing relatively low-filled compounds, its first major impact in
the U K was on the production of XLPE. With improved control of moisture content
in filling materials (vital in order to avoid premature crosslinking of compound in
the extruder), the range of polymers which can be processed by this technique has
increased considerably.

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Assembly
The cable assembly operations are similar in principle to conductor stranding and
bunching. The laying-up of cores and armouring of general wiring cables are carried out
on similar machines to those described above and in chapter 25 for conductor forming.
Although there is a predominance of small diameter cores containing flexible
conductors, there must be a sufficient range of machines to handle cores from 2-3 mm
in diameter up to sizes overlapping those of distribution cables. The laying-up of cores
for large volume products such as 2- and 3-core flexible cords is carried out on high
speed machines similar to those used for bunching small conductors. However, cables
with a large number of small cores are common, and the laying-up of these cores is very
similar to armouring or large conductor stranding, where provision must be made to
apply a large number of cores or wires in one pass. These machines usually have more
than one cradle containing the cores or wires, the cradles being arranged in tandem.
The laying-up machines are usually equipped with taping heads, so that binder tapes
can be applied, as necessary, over each layer of cores.
The braiding process may be used for applying materials ranging from yarns of
cotton, viscose, rayon, nylon, PETP and glass, through plain, tinned or nickel-plated
wires to phosphor bronze and steel wire. Depending on the cable sizes the braiding
machines may be set to operate in either a vertical or a horizontal arrangement.

QUALITY ASSURANCE
Over the last two decades, formal quality assurance systems have become an integral
part of general wiring cable manufacture. Final test and inspection functions have been
combined with a specialised in-process inspection organisation, as previously operated
for cables for defence applications, and expanded into a comprehensive system
involving stage monitoring, statistical data analysis and auditing. The approval scheme
operated by BASEC, which is described in chapter 7, is in most cases interlinked with
the factory quality assurance organisation, and provides the link with the CENELEC
certification scheme.
In modern factories quality assurance has been extended into all aspects of
production, from the examination of incoming materials and the servicing of supplier
approval schemes to final inspection and maintenance of product approvals. The
overall scheme is recorded and defined in a quality manual which forms the basis of the
manufacturer's relationship with his customers. More information is given in chapter 7.

REFERENCES
(1) Fresleigh, R. M. and Kehrer, G. P. (1980) 'Fabricating wire and cable with liquid
silicone'. Rubber World 181(5), 33-35.
(2) Edwards, I. C. (1978) 'Fluorinated copolymers- properties and applications in
relation to PTFE'. Plast. Rubber Inst. 3(3), 59-63.
(3) Blow, C. M. (1975) Rubber Technology and Manufacture. London: NewnesButterworths.

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261

(4) Smart, G. (1978) 'PLCV - a progress report'. 48th Annual Convention of the Wire
Association.
(5) Smart, G. I. (Oct. 1977, May 1978) 'Continuous vulcanising systems using liquid
salts under pressure'. 47th Annual Convention of the Wire Association, Boston,
USA; also in Wire J.
(6) Sequond, D. C. and Kailk, D. (1979) 'Power cable vulcanisation without steam'.
Elastomerics 111(3), 32-37; Elastomers Plast. 11, 97-109.
(7) Brandt, E. S. and Berijka, A. J. (1978) 'Electron beam crosslinking of wire and
cable insulations'. Rubber Worm 179(2), 49-51.