Insulation
Each rated cable is required to have a certain specified thickness to ensure that the insulation has sufficient thickness to bear voltage stresses without failure. These standard insulation thickness are available in various national publications.
However, controlling insulation thickness during manufacturing is a complex process. Often times the thickness could be less than or more than the optimal thickness. Whereas less than optimum thickness will result in rejection of the lot; a more than optimum thickness will lead to wastage of insulation material costing thousands of dollars each year.
Cable Quickie has the capability to perform measurements and generate reports in any of 17 worldwide standards meant for insulation thickness.
It can calculate the following: Min, max and average thickness, outer and inner diameter, concentricity, eccentricity, ovality/circularity etc.
No special skills are required to operate a Cable Quickie. Someone with basic computer operating skills can learn to operate the system in just 15 minutes.
Cable Quickie has an accuracy of +/- 10 microns for smaller systems (measuring upto 48 mm dia cable samples) and +/- microns for bigger systems.
Cable Quickie has a repeatability of +/- 5 microns for smaller systems ( measuring upto 48 mm dia cable samples) and +/- 10 microns for larger systems.
Cables with diameter up-to 140mm can be measured on Cable Quickie.
A special thickness calibration gauge is required. The metrology software has built-in calibration program that a user can run on his own.
The following factors affect image quality with a direct bearing on measured results.
- Cable Cross-section Slicing Procedure: The samples must be cut parallel (i.e the plane of the knife should be parallel to the cable face) so as to have uniform thickness. Use of a cable slicing machine is recommended however if the same is not available, and a knife is used instead, please make sure that samples have uniform thickness
- Lens Type - A telecentric lens has a zero angular filed of view that eliminates parallax error producing an un-distorted image.
- Camera Resolution - A higher resolution camera depending on the max diameter to be measured i.e. 5MP/10MP/ 15MP should be used.
- Collimated Light - Light with parallel rays helps in reproducing a true image without any distortion.
- Flatness of Work Platform - The glass platform should be flat within 0.040mm so that it does not affect the results.
Tensile Strength
Cable Insulation Tensile Strength and Elongation are key indicators of the life of the cable, its ability to bear physical stresses during installation, work-life, service etc. The standard values are specified for different types of insulation materials and cable manufacturers need to perform these tests in-house or from third party to ensure that their finished product matches the standard values.
Sipcon's Force Testing Machine can measure and generate reports as per ASTM D638-14.
Sipcon's Force Testing Machine is capable of performing the following measurements: Load rate, Position rate, Strain rate, Yield offset, Ultimate tensile strength, Ductility, Modulus of elasticity, Tensile strength, Yield Strength, Elongation Values, Percent Elongation, Percentage elongation at Yield, Percentage elongation at Break, Modulus of elasticity, Secant Modulus, Poisson Ratio, Stiffness, Parameters for heat treatment, Elastic Limit, Proportional Limit, Nominal Strain.