Whether the silicone rubber cable can be used as a tow chain cable

The large-scale production of silicone rubber began at the beginning of this century, as of 2012, China has a silicone rubber production capacity of nearly 300,000 tons/year, last year's actual production and sales are close to 200,000 tons. One-third of them are used in the cable industry. According to estimates by industry authorities, the annual use of silicone rubber in 2012 exceeded 60,000 tons.

At the 2013 China Asia Wire and Cable International Summit held from October 17 to 18 at Crowne Plaza Century Hotel in Shanghai, China, Professor Jin Biao Yi, senior engineer of Shanghai Cable Research Institute, introduced that due to the explosive development of China's silicone industry, the market price has declined exponentially, which has greatly promoted the application of silicone rubber in the wire and cable industry.

Silicone rubber is known for its excellent heat resistance and electrical properties, and is mainly used as insulation for high temperature resistant wires in the industry. However, since the beginning of this century, due to the explosive development of China's silicone industry, the production of silicone rubber has increased, and the market price has declined exponentially, and the former expensive special rubber has become a common rubber, which greatly promotes the application of silicone rubber in the wire and cable industry. Silicone rubber cables have rapidly expanded from high-temperature wires to power cables, Marine cables, control cables, computer data transmission cables, and even nuclear power plant cables. It can be used as either insulation or sheath. Thus soon became the wire and cable industry in the use of more rubber.

At the same time, because silicone rubber cables have very good softness, some companies in the industrial field often use silicone rubber cables as drag chain cables. Can silicone rubber cables be used as tow chain cables?

First of all, let's look at what is a drag chain cable.

Tow chain cable is a kind of flexible cable that can be used for reciprocating motion. Highly flexible cable is the power transmission material in the motion system, the cable of the signal transmission carrier, applied to the occasion of small bending radius and equipment unit need to move reciprocating, in order to prevent cable entanglement, wear, pull off, hook and scattered, usually put the cable into the cable drag chain, on the one hand can form protection for the cable, on the other hand, the cable can also follow the drag chain to achieve reciprocating movement. This kind of high flexible cable for the tow chain that can follow the tow chain for reciprocating movement and is not easy to wear is usually called the tow chain cable.

Silicone rubber cable flexibility is good, put it into the drag chain to use, for the bending radius requirements are not high occasions silicone rubber cable can meet the requirements, however, the bending of silicone rubber cable is low, not suitable for the bending radius requirements of small occasions. At the same time, the mechanical properties of silicone rubber cable are poor, not tensile resistance, not wear-resistant, when the drag chain drives the cable to move frequently, the core can not be effectively protected, easy to cause wear and broken core phenomenon.

Therefore, when selecting cables for mobile use (drag chain cables), we must not only consider the flexibility of the cable, but also consider the flexibility of the cable. With good flexibility and toughness, and reasonable design structure, such a cable is more suitable for towing chain environment.