Advantages and disadvantages of silicone rubber cable:

The most outstanding advantage of silicone rubber cable is heat resistance; its long-term working temperature is 200 ℃, which is one of the best heat resistance rubber; in addition, it also has excellent electrical performance, cold resistance, weather resistance, good process performance; low price is another attractive advantage.

The disadvantages of silicone rubber are also impressive: low strength, poor tear resistance, no scratch resistance, no extrusion resistance, and combustible.

Because of the above advantages and disadvantages, the consumption of silicone rubber in China's cable industry can not exceed that of chlorinated polyethylene rubber, and in developed countries, it can not exceed that of ethylene propylene rubber.

Application status in China's cable industry:
Silicone rubber has been regarded as a kind of special rubber with high price and high performance all over the world. It is an inevitable result that "when it comes to spring and snow, it is hard to compete with others". However, it is an exception in China after the reform and opening up. Due to the rapid development of China's silicone rubber industry, the price of silicone rubber has also dropped significantly, the special rubber has become the general rubber, and the gold price has become the cabbage price, so the silicone rubber has been promoted and applied in large quantities in the cable industry. And become the industry's second largest use of rubber. This was unthinkable 20 years ago, which is not only the pride of silicone industry, but also the new situation of adhesive used in China's cable industry.

development direction
Among the many kinds of rubber used in the cable industry, the formula and process of silicone rubber are the simplest and easiest to master, and the disadvantages of silicone rubber are very obvious as mentioned above. If we can improve the mechanical and physical properties (especially the strength and tear resistance) of the existing silicone rubber to the level of ethylene propylene rubber, I expect to expand its market demand by 50-100%.
In recent ten years, ceramic silicone rubber has made great progress in our country, but the development goal only focuses on the fire-resistant cable, which is not big enough. I think it should be extended to all halogen-free flame-retardant rubber cable series.
Silicone rubber with oil resistance has not been popularized and applied in China's cable industry. In the current standards, a variety of halogen-free flame retardant and oil resistant silicone rubber cable varieties are urgently needed. Efforts should be made in the development of rubber varieties and formula research, hoping to attract the attention of the silicone industry.