Improvements in rod manufacturing technology to meet the increasing quality requirements of the wire industry

摘要

The wire industry has changed significantly in the past 10 years. The installationof 7-wire, 14-wire and the more recent 21-wire multi-wire drawing machines dramatically changed the rod quality expectations of the wire manufacturers. High-speed data wire and telecom cable manufacturers increased their demands as they moved from category 3 to category o and 7 generation of data wires. Magnet wire manufacturers installed faster machines and their customers in turn demanded wire that was cleaner, annealed consistently and was free of surface defects. Each improvement in wire performance demanded more and more consistency from the copper rod suppliers. This paper outlines how the Alcatel rod mill, in Montreal, met the challenge to continuously improve the quality of the copper rod it supplies to its customers.