A New Application Technology of Aluminum instead of Copper in RF Coaxial Cable

摘要

The rapid development of 3G and 4G technologies has greatly promoted the application requirements of the RF coaxial cable as a base station feeder. For the RF coaxial cable manufacturing industry, it is very important to develop the technology to replace copper with aluminum. RF coaxial cables with copper-clad aluminum tube inner conductor are innovative applications of replacing copper with aluminum. A copper-clad aluminum tube is a composite tube with an inner aluminum layer and an outer copper cladding, providing benefits from both the aluminum and copper characteristics. The cost calculations show that more than 100 kilograms of copper can be saved for one kilometer 7/8" RF coaxial cable, if the copper inner conductor is replaced by the copper-clad aluminum tube. RF coaxial cables with copper-clad aluminum tube inner conductor have been designed, produced and tested. The test results show that in comparison with RF coaxial cables with copper tube inner conductor, RF coaxial cables with copper-clad aluminum tube not only have the same attenuation and VSWR performance, but also are cheaper. Through the application of the new type of RF coaxial cables, material costs can be reduced by more than 15%. The field tests in two operated communication base stations show that the new type of RF coaxial cables can also meet the requirements of the wireless network construction.