https://www.windpowerengineering.com/aluminium-as-a-conductor-material-a-lighter-and-more-economical-alternative/ The technical resource for wind power profitability Mon, 29 Jun 2020 19:06:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://www.windpowerengineering.com/aluminium-as-a-conductor-material-a-lighter-and-more-economical-alternative/#comment-614269 Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:16:09 +0000 http://www.windpowerengineering.com/?p=46760#comment-614269 Aluminum wire was used to replace copper in the 1970’s. One of the schools we worked with had regular fires which would consume the entire unit ventilator. This was traced to the aluminum wiring and all of the fires started at the junctions to the equipment. The building was constructed and inspected by applicable state and national wiring codes. This article is helpful in understanding why this happened. If it is built correctly, it still must be inspected on a regular basis. We used thermal infrared scanners which were bulky and used nitrogen gas. Is it correct to assume from a maintenance viewpoint that both copper and aluminum wiring must be thermally inspected but there appears to be more of a risk from aluminum? We noticed that the expansion of aluminum wiring requires retightening of all connectors on a regular basis. We generally did not do this regularly with copper wiring.

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