Furukawa Electric announced on Thursday the company and the magnet wire producing subsidiary Furukawa Magnet Wire co-developed new rectangular magnet wire with high electrical breakdown strength. The new magnet wire is adopted to Toyota Motor’s small-type hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), AQUA. Furukawa Electric started the commercial shipment at the end of 2011. The new rectangular magnet wire has an extruded resin layer which realizes high voltage resistance up to 1,400-1,500V. Thus the magnet wire can be used for driving motors inside HEV or electric vehicle (EV).
Thickness of an enamel insulator is generally limited up to 50 micrometers for conventional magnet wire in order to keep the product quality. Furukawa Electric’s new magnet wire is consisted of enamel magnet wire and an outer resin insulator. This structure enables thicker insulating layer with maximum 100 micrometers. Thicker insulator can endure high voltage usage without phase-to-phase insulating paper. Rectangular shape contributes to higher density of coils. In the case of AQUA, conventional magnet wire should be used at total 10 kg per car while the new magnet wire shows same performance with 7 kg consumption. High density leads to smaller and lighter motors. Furukawa Electric plans to expand the monthly production by 50% to 300 tonnes within this year at Mie plant, Japan with slightly less than 1 billion yen expenditure to meet the increasing demand for AQUA and supply the product to other EHV/EV.