What are Armoured cables?
Armoured cable is the name given to any electrical cable built with an armour of aluminium wire or steel wire armour. The armour sits under the cable sheath to protect the driver and isolate the layers.
Why armoured cables are used?
For use outside or in direct burial projects, the electrical cables must have mechanical protection. Such protection is provided by aluminium wire armour or AWA and steel wire armour or SWA, as well as by cable with higher pulling loads.
There are two types of armoured cables Aluminium wire armour and steel wire armour.
What are Steel Wire Armour (SWA)?
Steel Wire Armor cable is a mechanically protected, hard-wearing power cable designed for power supply. Indoor and outdoor, in cable ducts or directly buried in the ground, SWA is suitable. It is also possible to use multi-core steel wire armoured cable for auxiliary control.
SWA cable – PVC
SWA is a hard-wearing cable with Class 2 stranded copper conductors, XLPE (Cross-linked polyethene), PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) bedding, aluminium or steel wire armour and a black PVC sheath.
Sometimes the SWA cable is referred to as the Booklet Armored Cable, Mains or Power Cable. An SWA Cable’s voltage rating is 600/1000V.
SWA Cable – LS0H
The SWA Cable version of the low smoke zero halogens or LS0H is constructed in the same way as the PVC SWA Cable – with copper, XLPE and aluminium or steel wire armour. The only difference is that LS0HSWA Cable has LS0H bedding and an LS0H sheath.
LS0H SWA Cable is used in public areas as the sheath only emits very low smoke levels and non-toxic halogen gas levels when exposed to fire
