25.11.2022 - Aluminium Association

The Aluminium Association and Moskabelmet Group of Companies organised a series of tours to one of Russia’s oldest and, at the same time, most advanced cable manufacturers, Moskabel Plant. Journalists, bloggers, and those simply interested in modern technology wanted to take part in the promotional project and visit the industrial cluster (Moskabel Plant received this status in June 2022 and is one of the top four plants in the country).

In just two hours, they were able to see the entire cycle of power cable production for various industries, construction of residential buildings and shopping centres, airports and sports facilities, as well as the Moscow Metro, discover when aluminium was used in the cable industry, admire the luxurious forged gates with the double-headed eagle and winged sphinxes, and a slightly smaller version of the Eiffel Tower installed at the plant.

Moskabel Plant is an enterprise that produces all types of cable products for low and medium voltage. During a tour of the plant, which celebrated its 127th anniversary this year, guests were given a comprehensive insight into its history, the tradition of celebrating its birthday on June 16, the stages of production of aluminium alloy cable and wire products, and the innovative technologies used today at the plant, including locally developed Aripix robots.

The tour route included both the drawing and wire drawing shop and the finished product manufacturing shop. The wire drawing shop starts processing aluminium wire rod supplied by RUSAL. It comes in different diameters — 9 mm, 15 mm, and 19 mm. The larger the diameter, the larger the output cross-section of wire that can be produced.

Aluminium, unlike copper, is not subjected to heat treatment in annealing furnaces as it is a more malleable material. But if the customer needs products with softer characteristics, Moskabel Plant has a special low-temperature furnace in which the whole coil can be annealed — the material acquires different characteristics.

The visitors watched in fascination as the wire is gradually drawn from the wire rod and then spun according to the parameters specified by the customer. Aluminium wire rod is always washed in a special soapy solution before being sent to the drawing machine. This is done in order to avoid breakage during drawing and to increase the processing speed.

In the next workshop, the visitors were shown how the conductor is formed on special equipment. The experts who accompanied the visitors explained the flexibility classes of conductors, from the first to the sixth. The flexibility class depends on the wire diameter and the number of wires inside the conductive core. The electrical resistance of the strand is checked before putting it into operation. Only then is approval given for stranding and further operations. The required parameters (electrical and mechanical ones) of the wire before stranding the conductor are checked selectively, for 30% of the batch. The finished conductor is moved to the next site and the next stage of power cable production begins.

In the drying and impregnating plant, the visitors were shown how to produce paper-insulated cables. Moskabel Plant manufactures cables with different types of insulation, but essentially these are two types of insulation: a paper-insulated cable and a cable made from a variety of PVC-plastic compounds. Paper-insulated cables are a true classic, having been produced and used for more than a century. Today, these reliable cables are still in demand, and three plants in Russia manufacture them. There are bitumen products in the casing.

Interestingly, a few millennia ago bitumen, along with oil and beeswax, was used in the creation of mummies in ancient Egypt. The longevity of paper-padded insulation was further confirmed comparatively recently when a cable made by Moskabel Plant in 1918 was found in working order in Moscow during the reconstruction of a network in one of the districts!

Moskabelmet Group of Companies has improved the design of the paper-impregnated insulation by using not a standard paper, but a heat-resistant paper that can withstand temperatures of over 120 degrees. This is the product used in the TEVOX cable. Both the cable itself and its connectors are entirely domestic products. It has received a certificate that it can be used at Rosseti’s facilities.

As visitors immerse in the cable theme and move from workshop to workshop and site to site, their interest only tends to increase. Intrigue ensues at the finished product warehouse with aluminium wire. ‘Who is the end-user of the aluminium wire you now see in coils?’ a guide in a jacket of Moskabelmet Group of Companies slyly asks. The company’s guests offer all sorts of answers: car industry, construction, metro... The correct answer amazes and amuses everyone: it’s a sausage staple! The sausage loaf has clips at the tip — you can see how they look in the original version at Moskabel Plant.

The highlight of each tour was a tour of the exhibition ‘Aluminium in Cable Industry: from Electrolysis to Finished Cable,’ which opened on October 25, 2022 on Cable Industry Workers’ Day and coincided with this year’s 90th anniversary of the Russian aluminium industry. The booths, which are set up in a picturesque square on the factory site surrounded by wrought iron lanterns and benches next to the very Eiffel Tower, display spectacular photographs of pouring metal and the cables and wires made from it. The illustrative infographic gives a clear idea of when and where the first domestic aluminium was produced, the technologies used today by companies of Moskabelmet Group of Companies, the advantages and applications of the modern 8xxx series alloy cables, and the 8176 and 8030 alloys used today in housing construction.

Of course, it is physically impossible to walk around the entire territory of Moskabel factory and all the facilities of Moskabelmet Group of Companies, which employs two thousand people, during a two-hour tour. But learning a lot about the origins and current technology of cable production, taking selfies in front of a working shop, taking pictures of industrial robots and innovative products of domestic cable makers — all this is quite feasible. Although the series of joint excursions by the Aluminium Association and Moskabelmet Group of Companies is over, Moskabel Plant will continue to welcome guests and initiate them into the holy of holies of cable production.

‘We are delighted and proud that our company is attracting keen interest from both industry experts and people with only the most basic understanding of cable production. The Moskabel Plant’s tours are not only and not so much about entertainment as they are about introducing a wider audience to the modern technologies and materials that make our lives more comfortable and safer and ensure progress. In the anniversary year for the domestic aluminium industry, our promotional activities have focused on aluminium cable and conductor products, which are now confidently gaining market share,’ Pavel Moryakov, CEO of Moskabelmet Group of Companies, and Head of Energy Sector at the Aluminium Association, says.