How Many Kinds of Wire And Cable Conductors Are There?

There are not only many kinds of wire and cable products, but also many kinds of conductors. There are 7 kinds of commonly used ones:

Conductor: a component in a cable that has a specific function of conducting current.            

Solid conductor: a conductor made of a round or shaped wire.          

Single conductor: conductor of single or multiple wires without covering other metal layers.            

Metal coated conductor: a solid conductor coated with a thin layer of different metals or alloys.            

Tinned Conductor: a conductor coated with tin.            

Metal clad conductor: a conductor consisting of one metal as an internal component and another metal as an external component coated on it by metallurgic process (fusion).            

Concentric stranded round conductor: a stranded conductor whose multiple strands are twisted in a spiral shape to form one or more concentric layers, usually with adjacent layers twisted in the opposite direction.            

Bundle conductor: a conductor composed of multiple single wires in the same direction and at the same pitch and in a spiral shape.            

Stranded conductor: one or more layers of conductors (cores) made up of several strands of helix. Each strand in the conductor (core) can be concentric stranded or bunched.            

Hollow conductor: a conductor with a central channel.            

Split conductor: a conductor consisting of stranded wires with a thin layer of insulation between them.            

Flat conductor: a conductor whose cross-section is nearly flat.            

Flexible conductor: a stranded conductor consisting of circular wires of sufficiently small diameter, suitable for flexible cables.            

Compact Conductor: a stranded conductor that is mechanically compacted or stretched, or whose shape and configuration of wires are selected to reduce the stranding gap.            

Concentric conductor: a conductor enclosed in one or more insulated cores.   

Copper wire: a conductor consisting of a layer or layers of thin copper strips spirally wound around a fiber core and then twisted by one or several elements.            

From (outer) conductor: coaxial to inner (outer) conductive element.