Broken neutral on utility pole

[jimwalker]

Re: Broken neutral on utility pole

It may very well have some aluminum in it.I do know it is very hard to bend our cut from the drops we have either cut loose or rehooked after a service change.Perhaps it's a FL. thing do to our huricanes

[ February 21, 2005, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: jimwalker ]

 

[charlie]

Re: Broken neutral on utility pole

Jim described it correctly. The 7 strand ACSR has 6 strands of aluminum around a galvanized steel strand. We still have some 266.6 kcmil ACSR in the air but all of our new distribution conductors are either 397.5 kcmil AAC or 795 kcmil AAC. The larger ASCR is OK but the smaller sizes of ACSR tends to fail. It seems the #2 and larger holds up reasonably well. We have surmised that the smaller sizes that we used with triplex tended to react with the zinc, water, and aluminum. HMMM . . . you are missing the water in the desert southwest, aren't you?

 

[kilewatt2002]

Re: Broken neutral on utility pole

here in the wet spot(wash)I have come across acsr as recent as 2 months ago but to my knowledge we havent used it for residental drops for aprx22 yrs..
Glenn

 

[hurk27]

Re: Broken neutral on utility pole

Charlie have you ever run across any tri-plex that the neutral had a harden stainless steel center conductor? We had some in the yard and I went to cut a piece off with my ratchet cutters and it made a nice dent in the cutter blades . It was a 250 kcmil neutral. I cut out a section and un-wound the center conductor, it was about a #10 in size but boy was it was strong. you could not bend it or cut it with 9" lineman's.

 

[charlie]

Re: Broken neutral on utility pole

No, again, I have never heard of stainless steel used to make ACSR. BTW, just because I say that I have never heard of it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that you don't know what you are looking at. It just means that I have never heard of its use anywhere. When you consider that it has been a long time since we have put up any new ACSR, I wouldn't have any experience with ACSR.