Step Three: Matching Cable Construction to Your Environment

After determining the electrical and heat requirements for your application, the next step is to consider your specific environmental conditions. And specifically, which environmental factors you need to be most concerned with. For example, on offshore oil rigs, personnel are three to four hours from the nearest rescue vehicle. Wire and cable applications need to provide adequate time to circuit failure during a catastrophic accident, such as a fire. Mica in combination with a thermosetting material is an excellent insulation material for this type of application because it provides extra time to circuit failure.

Once you know the two or three environmental factors in your application that may affect the service life of high-temperature wire or cable, see Properties of Insulating, Braiding and Jacketing Materials as a guide to determine which materials are best suited to those two or three factors. While this chart is not all encompassing, it does include the most common high-temperature wire and cable insulation materials.