Furukawa Electric Develops Lighter Auto Wiring Harness for 2010-2012 Cars

Furukawa Electric advances research and development to lighten automotive wiring harness from current 30 kilogram per vehicle and aims commercial adoption on new model automobiles released in 2010-2012. The firm developed automotive cable with aluminium alloy conductor or ultra-thin copper core to decrease weight of automotive wiring harness and consumption of copper metal.

Automotive cable with aluminium alloy conductor is lighter by 20-40% than copper conductor cable. Furukawa Electric developed new aluminium alloy which contains silicon, iron and copper to meet enough conductivity, connectivity, intensity and flexibility as a substitutive material for copper. Additionally the firm developed an original crimping connection method for aluminium cables and connector pins to meet both high connective strength and low electric resistance.

Aluminium cable becomes 1.5 times thicker than copper cable since aluminium conductivity is 60% compared with copper. To avoid total size up of automotive wiring harness, Furukawa Electric also developed ultra-thin cable with copper conductor of 0.06 square millimeters cross section. The firm devised a combination of aluminium alloy cable and ultra-thin copper cable as substitutions for current copper cable.

The thinnest copper cable for automotive wiring harness is 0.13 square mm cross section at present. The conductor material is copper alloy which contains mainly tin. Furukawa Electric newly adopted Corson series copper alloy for 0.06 square mm cable to secure enough strength despite of ultra-thin diameter.

Furukawa Electric calculated automotive wiring harness could be lightened by 3.4 kg or 12% and copper consumption decreased by 4.4 kg or 32% per 2,000cc class luxury sedan by replacement of instrument panel harnesses and floor harnesses with newly developed cables. The test calculation supposes replacement of 0.35 square mm copper cables for signaling systems with 0.06 square mm copper alloy cables and replacement of more than 0.5 square mm copper cables for power systems with more than 0.75 square mm aluminium alloy cables.

Auto component makers are actively developing new technologies to lighten automotive wiring harness for better environmental responsiveness, less fuel consumption and less copper usage volume per vehicle.