YJV22 Steel Tape Armoured XLPE Power Cable
YJV22-0.6-1kV
Double galvanised steel tape under a PVC jacket: built to take the radial pressure of backfill and excavation tools, not the pull of a winch.
Armoured Power Cable
Armour is mechanical insurance, and the type you buy has to match the force you expect. A steel tape wrapped in two counter-lapped layers principally resists radial pressure: the w
Armour is mechanical insurance, and the type you buy has to match the force you expect. A steel tape wrapped in two counter-lapped layers principally resists radial pressure: the weight of compacted backfill, a rock resting on the route, or the crush of a hand excavation tool striking the sheath. It contributes almost nothing to tensile strength. Round steel wires laid helically around the bedding do the opposite: they accept a large axial pull, so they are specified wherever the cable hangs, drops vertically, or must be dragged several hundred metres along a route.
In GB/T 12706 notation that difference is one digit. The first numeral after the insulation code names the armour: 2 is steel tape, 3 is round steel wire, 4 is coarse round steel wire. The second numeral names the sheath: 2 is PVC, 3 is polyethylene. YJV22 and YJV32 therefore share insulation, conductor and outer sheath and differ only in what sits under the jacket. Voltcore runs both armouring lines in-house in Yixing, beds every armour layer over an extruded inner covering so the wires cannot migrate into the cores, and records armour wire diameter and coverage percentage per drum.
4 constructions in Armoured Power Cable
YJV32 Steel Wire Armoured XLPE Power Cable
YJV32-0.6-1kV
Round galvanised steel wire armour that carries the cable's own weight — specified where the route pulls, drops or hangs.
YJLV22 Aluminium Conductor Steel Tape Armoured Cable
YJLV22-0.6-1kV
Aluminium conductors inside the same tape-armoured build: roughly half the drum weight of YJV22, for buried routes where the cable is the budget line.
STA / GSWA Armoured Cable to BS 5467 and IEC 60502-1
BS5467-GSWA-600-1000V
British-standard armouring written onto an IEC build: GSWA as standard, STA where the schedule asks for tape, tested to BS 5467.
Steel tape or steel wire armour: decide from the force, not from habit
Ask what will actually act on the cable after installation. In a shallow trench under a road, load arrives radially from above, and 22-type steel tape armour handles that well at lower cost and smaller diameter. In a mine shaft, a high-rise riser, or a 300 m tunnel pull, load arrives axially from the cable's own weight and the winch rope, and only 32-type wire armour should be considered.
There is also an electrical constraint that overrides both. Never put steel armour on a single-core AC cable. The alternating field induces eddy currents in a closed magnetic path around the conductor, heating the armour and wasting several percent of the transmitted power. Single-core designs use aluminium wire armour, or a non-magnetic stainless steel strap, which Voltcore supplies for 0.6/1 kV and medium-voltage single cores.
- 22 (steel tape): direct burial, road crossings, ducts under load-bearing surfaces
- 32 (steel wire): vertical shafts, risers, long pulling runs, unsupported drops
- Single-core AC always uses non-magnetic armour
- Tape armour adds little diameter; wire armour adds noticeably more weight
Bonding and earthing the armour — the detail RFQs most often omit
Armour doubles as the protective conductor on many utility networks, which is economical but must be proven rather than assumed. Calculate armour cross-section from the available earth-fault current and clearing time, then check the DC resistance of the armour helix per kilometre; a thin tape on a small cable can be above several ohm per kilometre and may not satisfy loop-impedance requirements at the far end of a long feeder.
Where the armour is bonded, use armour glands with separate earth tags at both ends, or at one end with the far end insulated if the design prevents circulating currents. Where the project instead wants a clean protective conductor, order a dedicated core (4+1 or 3+2 construction) and treat the armour purely as mechanical protection, bonded at one point only.
Bedding, backfill and the specification underneath the trench detail
Armoured cable is often buried badly rather than buried insufficiently. A 100 mm sand bed below and 300 mm of screened backfill above, with warning tape at roughly half depth, costs little and removes most of the rock-strike risk that armour was specified to survive. Where the route crosses under a road, add a duct or concrete tile cover; armour is not a substitute for the civil works.
Specify the bedding layer too. Voltcore applies an extruded PVC bedding rather than a lapped tape on sizes below 25 mm², because tape migration under armour tension is the most common cause of sheath deformation seen in returned drums. Above that size either construction is offered, and halogen-free bedding compounds are available to match an LSZH outer sheath.
- Sand surround and warning tape: specify them in the RFQ, not the method statement later
- State whether the route crosses roads or other loaded surfaces
- Confirm bonding arrangement so we can size the armour to the fault level
Request pricing across Armoured Power Cable
Include cross-section, core count, voltage grade, route length and installation method — those five determine price more than anything else on the page.
- Engineer-reviewed before pricing
- Reference drawings issued with the quotation
- Free sample up to free sample up to 5 m