Overhead conductors are the backbone of every industrialised country. They are responsible for the distribution of energy and satisfy our basic need for electricity all over the world. Passing silently overhead, we are almost oblivious to their existence unless something goes amiss across the whole power grid. The strong economic growth of recent times and an increasing global demand for energy has placed the subject of overhead conductors very much in the limelight. Made of aluminium, aluminium alloys or steel and aluminium composite materials, overhead conductors are highly standardised products, manufactured with just two processes: drawing and stranding.
The Sampsistemi manufacturing programme includes single and double wire drawing lines, engineered to produce overhead conductors with either slip-type machines or limited-slip, multi-motor solutions. In both cases oil lubrication is utilised and finished wire is packed onto reels or in baskets. The end product is often such a large number of wires that a counter-rotating, multi-cage strander is required for the stranding process. Given the high level of productivity of this type of drawing machine and the fact that wire diameters are often large (up to 4 mm and above), reels (usually 630 mm) are filled within a matter of minutes. Using a single spooler on this type of line would result in significant machine downtime so, to change reels without line stoppage, a dual automatic spooler is normally installed. A further innovation, beneficial to wire and cable manufacturers and Sampsistemi alike, is the development of so-called “central stranders”. These are highly efficient stranding lines which use service reels positioned coaxially in relation to the cage rotation axis. Once the reels have been emptied of their content, they are respooled on the strander with wire fed from large wire baskets. This new tendency to collect aluminium wire in baskets, as in copper wire spooling, again sees Sampsistemi at the forefront, engineering the right solutions for you.
