How much energy does a small cable have? | Military Cable

Military Cable

Cable is the "blood vessel" and "nerve" of weapon equipment. The electric energy and information transmitted by it maintain the normal operation of various "organs" of weapon equipment. No matter which of the cables spread in the "body" of weapons and equipment has technical problems, it may cause the use failure of weapons and equipment.
Speaking of the origin of cable, people will think of Franklin's "kite flying" experiment in lightning weather in history. After that, Franklin made another bold attempt. He fixed a few meter long iron rod on the roof with insulating material, and tied a metal wire on the rod. When lightning strikes, the lightning will go straight underground through the iron rod and metal wire, and the house building is intact. In the experiment, the metal wire was what people later called the prototype of cable.
It's like opening a magic box, a small metal wire. With the continuous development of science and technology, many types of cables have been derived. Different types of cables play different functions in the construction of weapons and equipment and national defense projects, but they play an indispensable role.
The workers in the cable workshop of the factory discussed the production process of three-dimensional integrated cable. Photo by Ma Shuai
Rough has rough truth, and fine has fine knowledge
Cables have a huge family and a great variety. In order to ensure the transmission safety of electric energy and information, they will wear "waistcoats" of different materials under different needs.
The color of "vest" indicates the type of cable. In order to operate safely and avoid accidents, there are strict regulations on line color identification, which must be in accordance with national standards, and cables in military industry must also comply with military standards. Yellow, green, red, light blue, yellow / Green two-color line, red black, brown... Different colors of "vest" correspond to different types of cables, which is convenient for rapid identification of cable types.
According to the volume, the cable has both slender "beautiful lady" and "fat man" with big arms and round waist. Whether it is a "beautiful lady" or a "fat man", there are rough principles and fine knowledge.
The slender "beautiful lady" has special abilities. In life, we are more common copper cable, with a diameter of about 0.035mm, slightly thicker than hair. No matter how thin, there are optical fiber cables thinner than hair. Don't underestimate the optical fiber cable, which is one of the core technologies of 5g. In this way, the signal transmission capacity of one cable can be equivalent to that of thousands of copper cables.
If "waist thin" is taken as the quantitative standard, the nano cable developed by a foreign research team in 2017 has set a world record. The diameter of this cable is only the diameter superposition size of three atoms.
Is the "waist" of the cable as thin as possible? Of course not. Under the same material, the thicker the cable, the greater the current it can bear and the more equipment it can carry. For example, the larger the reservoir, the wider the river channel is needed to discharge water. However, the higher the voltage level, the larger the transmission capacity and the farther the transmission distance, the larger the equipment supporting the cable is required.
Medium and long-range ballistic missiles and intercontinental missiles need to have the ability of long-distance cross area launch and precision attack on a variety of targets, which needs to provide more current carrying capacity for missiles. For example, the new generation of Russian intercontinental missile "salmat" is very powerful. It needs to be equipped with cables thicker than the thighs of adult men.
In the field of missile manufacturing, there is a saying: "strive to reduce the weight of each gram." The lighter the missile load, the smaller the load. How to find a perfect balance between the thickness of the cable is a technical problem that must be faced. The future war puts forward higher requirements for the flexibility and rapid response of the missile, so the cable network structure on the missile needs to be highly integrated and lightweight.
In short, the types of cables used are different for different military applications. We need to find the golden ratio between thickness and fineness.