Question

why are overhead electric cables are made up of aluminium and not copper?

please a long type answer

Answer 1

Aluminum is versatile. These cables are widely used across many countries and various industries.

Aluminum has its own advantages over other metals. But before starting with aluminum, let us check other conductive metals like silver and copper.

Even though silver is the good conductor of electricity, its higher value of price limits its implementation as an overhead cable because replacement and damages cost a lot of money in case when silver reacts to oxidation due to humidity.

The cost of silver already indicates that it is one among the rare metal but yes, silver is used in connections where high conductivity is required and less amount of cables.

Along with silver, the next metal which is more conductive is copper. Even though silver has a higher conductivity of 63 x 106 siemens/meter, copper is 7 percent lesser than silver that is 59 x 106 siemens/meter.

When we look into the factors of the amount of electricity lost in copper is 2 ohms higher than silver.