Difference between revisions of "Electrical Conductors"
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Outdoors on Luna, in a vacuum, where it can't tarnish, [[Silver]] is the king of electrical conductors | Outdoors on Luna, in a vacuum, where it can't tarnish, [[Silver]] is the king of electrical conductors | ||
− | in the Lunar outdoors, silver would be way better than gold | + | in the Lunar outdoors, silver would be way better than gold, copper, or aluminum. |
[[Category:Life Support (Power Supply)]] | [[Category:Life Support (Power Supply)]] | ||
[[Category:Civil Engineering]] | [[Category:Civil Engineering]] |
Revision as of 16:56, 12 March 2007
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Contents
Aluminum
aluminum is also used as a conductor here on earth, in fact you use it every day without realizing it. those HT cables have a steel core and an aluminum outer layer it's used because losses are fairly low at 110kV and the weight of the cable and cost of the towers is important
steel cored aluminum allows a longer span
aluminum shouldn't be used for domestic wiring, it's crap compared to copper
and there's really no reason to use it where you don't need it's light weight
I expect we'll have to put up with aluminum wire on Luna though, which means higher voltages would be better
Copper
as a general conductor copper is widely used because it's cheap, reasonably flexible, reasonably light and the 2nd best conductor, but it corrodes worse than silver
Gold
Gold is not very good for wires, although gold plated tubes could be used for RF
for connectors gold reigns supreme for several reasons" 1. It doesn't tarnish (important on Earth, important indoors on Luna)" 2. It's soft so you can make the connectors tight and the dig into each other forming a good connection."
Silver
Outdoors on Luna, in a vacuum, where it can't tarnish, Silver is the king of electrical conductors
in the Lunar outdoors, silver would be way better than gold, copper, or aluminum.