As profit margins in the wire and cable industry become increasingly squeezed, many strong cable manufacturers are shifting their focus towards high-end product development. Consequently, we have seen unprecedented attention being paid to my country's specialty cable market in recent years. However, the development of specialty cables has also encountered insurmountable obstacles—the low technological content of cable raw materials makes them difficult to meet the needs of cable manufacturers. This has seriously hindered cable manufacturers' entry into the specialty cable market. Therefore, cable raw material manufacturers also urgently need to increase R&D investment to address the concerns of cable manufacturers regarding transformation and upgrading, and to compete for the more profitable high-end cable market.
In recent years, the shipbuilding and aviation industries have experienced rapid development and strong market demand. Therefore, the active research and development of marine and aviation cables has always been a focus of attention for the domestic cable industry. This article will analyze marine and aviation cables.
The rapid development of China's shipbuilding industry has brought significant opportunities to the development of marine cables. Since 2013, the state has repeatedly expressed its concern for the shipbuilding industry. The State Council previously issued the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating Structural Adjustment and Promoting Transformation and Upgrading of the Shipbuilding Industry (2013-2015)," and subsequently, the National Development and Reform Commission provided its own interpretation of the plan, explicitly emphasizing "controlling new production capacity and optimizing the production capacity structure. Fully utilize the existing shipbuilding, ship repair, and marine engineering equipment infrastructure capabilities of leading enterprises, resolutely curb new production capacity, eliminate outdated production capacity, and resolve the contradiction of overcapacity."
The market demand for marine electrical wires and cables is enormous, requiring a large quantity of specialized wires and cables with relatively high added value. The prospects for wire and cable companies developing marine products are promising. As the nerves and blood vessels of a ship, electrical wires and cables directly affect its safety, reliability, sophistication, and combat capabilities. This places high demands on marine cable technology, accelerating the upgrading and replacement of marine cables. Modern ships have laid tens of kilometers of cables of various specifications. In Europe, the popularity of oil tanker vacations has spurred the construction of oil tankers, requiring each tanker to lay over 1,000 kilometers of insulated cables throughout the vessel. Under these favorable circumstances, Chinese marine cable companies should vigorously develop marine cable technology, seize opportunities, and strive to shorten the gap with the world.
China has dozens of wire and cable companies capable of manufacturing marine cables, with nearly ten possessing specialized production capabilities. However, despite my country's shipbuilding tonnage ranking second in the world, the import situation for marine cables remains severe, plunging these domestic marine cable companies into difficulties. Currently, Nexans is intensifying its efforts to capture the Chinese shipbuilding market, showing a clear tendency to monopolize the Chinese marine cable market.
With the recovery of the shipbuilding industry, the demand for marine cables is increasing, and the development potential is also significant. Marine cables have high technical requirements, therefore, companies need to increase investment in new technologies when necessary. Specialty cables differ from ordinary cables, and my country's specialty cable technology is relatively new, resulting in a lack of specialization in related fields. Currently, flame-retardant cables for civilian ships fully comply with the latest IEC standards, and halogen-free low-smoke cables generally meet Class A requirements for bundled combustion. The mainstream insulation materials are cross-linked polyolefins and ethylene propylene rubber; natural styrene-butadiene rubber has been phased out. Some domestic cable manufacturers can produce control and instrumentation cables according to Dutch standards.
my country's military ship electrical cable standards are equivalent to those of the United States, and most electrical cables for military ships can be supplied domestically. Specialized deep-water longitudinally sealed cables have surpassed conventional levels, capable of reaching depths exceeding 600 meters. Defense-grade ultra-high tensile strength sonar cables have also reached a very high level.
In the field of aviation wires and cables, there are currently two main series: one is polyimide-fluorine 46 composite film wrapped and sintered insulated cable, mainly used in military helicopters. This type is now domestically produced, but the composite film is still imported due to quality considerations. The other is radiation-crosslinked ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer insulated cable, a type widely used in modern military and civilian large aircraft. It is abbreviated as X-ETFE insulated wire. Large military transport aircraft use 7-8 tons of wire per aircraft. X-ETFE has a specific gravity of 1.73, can operate at temperatures up to 200℃, has a thin-walled insulation structure with a single-layer insulation thickness of 0.15mm, is lightweight, has a relatively high current carrying capacity, stable chemical properties, and excellent electrical, mechanical, and radiation resistance properties. It is also one of the major types used in aerospace vehicles.
X-ETFE (X-F40) insulated aviation wires and cables are technically challenging to manufacture. Almost every production process presents some problems. For example: 1. High precision is required for single-wire stranding; no skipped wires are allowed in the outer layer, otherwise the minimum insulation thickness will be substandard. 2. Currently, there is no domestic supply of insulation raw materials, requiring import from DuPont or Daikin. 3. A suitable sensitizer has not yet been found domestically. Importing sensitizer masterbatch particles is extremely difficult. Importing finished particles that can be directly extruded and crosslinked by irradiation is prohibitively expensive. 4. Developing raw materials and their mixing and granulation processes in-house presents significant challenges in terms of equipment and technology. 5. Thin insulation extrusion of wires is difficult to control, such as parameters like eccentricity and draw ratio. 6. The ideal irradiation dose needs to be studied to obtain the optimal degree of crosslinking. 7. Post-treatment conditions for irradiated wires need to be studied; otherwise, the electrical and mechanical properties may not fully meet the standard requirements.
In the 1950s, my country's electromechanical manufacturing industry lagged behind, and cable supply was not specialized, lacking the conditions to develop electrical equipment wires and cables. The mandatory implementation of measures such as "replacing lead with plastic" and "replacing rubber with plastic" in the 1960s strongly promoted technological progress, and this major product category began to take shape. In the 1990s, the market economy gradually matured, and the demand for electrical equipment wires and cables surged, developing into an independent major product category配套 (supporting) engineering projects. Its output value has remained at 25-30%. Currently, with the persistently high price of copper—the main raw material for cable production—there is a growing call for "using aluminum to save copper" or even "replacing copper with aluminum." Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, "replacing copper with aluminum" will be truly realized, which will then be another revolution in the wire and cable industry.
