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NBSIR 78-1507

Some Thoughts on Electrical

Connections

(A Jacob Rabinow

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

August 1978

U S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE -QC100

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78-1507

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

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NBSIR 78-1507 ^0t fc.c- £ftJP

QCiOO SOME THOUGHTS ON ELECTRICAL

CONNECTIONS

Jacob Rabinow

National Engineering Laboratory

Nations! Bureau of Standards

Washington, D C. 20234

August 1978

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OP COMMERCE. Juanita M. Kreps, Secretary

Dr. Sidney Harman, Under Secretary

Jordan J. Baruch, Assistant Secretary for Science and 7@chnoiogy

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Ernest Ambler, Director
'
ABSTRACT

This report is a subjective and personal statement of my experiences

and thoughts regarding electrical connections, in general, and aluminum

wiring for homes, in particular. It is not a statement of official

position of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). It is entirely

possible that other members of the NBS staff may not agree with many

statements made in this report. It is based on some considerable

experience and where the ideas expressed are not based on such

experience, I hope this is clearly indicated.

My conclusions are that present day technology of electrical distribution

wiring in residences is not in keeping with good engineering practices

available today. This is true relative to both copper and aluminum

wiring.

Key Words: Aluminum wiring; Electrical connections; Pressure

terminals ; Wire creep

Introduction

Sometime after Dr. Stanley Warshaw joined NBS as Director of the Center

for Consumer Product Technology, he asked me to write out my thoughts on electrical connections, in general, and aluminum wiring , in particular.

This report is the result. Because many of the ideas in this paper are based only on my own experiences and my prejudices, the report should not

be considered an official statement of NBS on aluminum wiring or, for that

matter, on anything else in this paper.

When we did the original work at NBS for the Consumer Product Safety

Commission, we were rather anxious to expand the work and to investigate

the chemistry and physics of connections as a general, broad problem, at

least as it affects electrical branch wiring. However, the tasks which

we were requested to address were rather specific and limited in scope,

and we were unable at that time to get the support necessary to do the

work as extensively as we would have liked. It is for this reason that

many of my comments in this report are based either on prior experience

outside of NBS or are based on judgments resulting from rather meager

tests

.

I would like, first, to state my qualifications for writing this. While

I was getting my two electrical engineering degrees and until I came to

NBS in 1938, I worked as an electrician and as a radio mechanic. One

company for which I worked for several years built electrical fixtures and

also sold and installed them. I also did a great deal of radio service

work and a considerable amount of custom building of various radio

equipments. During the war, at NBS, I was involved with proximity fuses,

guided missiles, and so on. It was for one of these fuses that printed

circuits were invented in the United States. In connection with this work,

I was exposed to many difficult problems in electrical connections.

From 1934 to 1964, I headed my own company where about half of our effort

was devoted to work for the Sprague Electric Company, a major maker of

capacitors. This has a direct bearing on what I am going to say because

capacitors are usually made of aluminum foil and connections to this

aluminum foil are made by soldering, crimping, riveting, etc. My staff

and I designed and built equipment for automatic soldering, automatic

winding, and other associated processes in making capacitors. During

this period, I also worked on a great many machines for others, including

radar, Post Office letter-sorting machines and computer equipment.

In 1964, my company joined Control Data Corporation and I was in charge of

their OCR Laboratory. Here I learned that the quality of wiring in

computers is quite different from almost anything else that I have worked

on except, possibly, ordnance. A service call caused by the failure of a relatively simple part of a computer may cost several hundred dollars. We

therefore asked our workers to make all connections very carefully because

the cost of the connectors and connections is a small fraction of the total

cost of a computer, its operations and its maintenance.
Types of Electrical Connections

The literature describing electrical connections is very extensive. There

are books, technical articles and, of course, thousands of patents on devices that have to do with electrical connections. This report is by no means an attempt to cover the whole field. Its primary purpose is to

discuss the types of electrical connections that one fashions with unsophisticated tools and, particularly, for home wiring or for things with which we

are familiar in consumer goods, such as lamps or small appliances.

Electrical connections, for the purpose of this report, can be classed into

two basic types. One is where the metal is continuous; that is, the

connection is made either by some form of weld between the parts to be

connected or by solder. In the other class, the connection is made

mechanically; that is, by pressure between two or more conductors that

have to be connected.

Welded Connections

Welded connections can be, again, of many types. A common type would be

when one welds two parts by the application of external heat. I have been

told that the Russians use aluminum wire for home and for industrial wiring

and that they weld the wires to the terminals with thermite. This is not a cheap and easy method; it is dangerous; and if one considers the fire hazard

and the pressure of time under which our people work, it does not appear to

be a very attractive system. The same can be said of welding using torches,

electric arcs, and so on. Spot welding is often used but not for home

wiring. Spot welding is commonly employed in factories when connecting

wires to terminals and when attaching contact points to various parts of

machinery, such as in circuit breakers. This type of welding is done by

passing a large amount of current for a very short time through the con- nection. This welds the terminal to the back material because of the

relatively high electrical resistance between the two parts. The connection

can be inspected either by mechanical means (trying to separate the parts)

or by measuring the electrical resistance of the weld or, very often, simply

by the sound that occurs when the connection is made. The machine that spot

welds makes a distinctive sound during the weld and an experienced operator

can easily tell whether the connection was well made. There is no doubt that

spot welding is an excellent and high-speed method of making electrical

connections but there is also very little doubt that it is completely

unsuitable for electrical wiring in a building - certainly not in the usual

type of construction.

Soldering

Another and widely used method of electrical connections, of course, is the

soldering together of two or more elements by a low temperature metal, such

as a tin-lead alloy or a tin-zinc alloy. For this purpose, the usual

procedure is to heat the metals to be joined and to coat them with a flux

2
which reduces the oxide coating and then to "wet” the pieces by the

melted solder. When the joint cools, the whole assembly is electrically

conductive and this technique is very widely used. This method is

especially good for copper, particularly tinned copper. It is more

difficult to use with steel because the oxide is more difficult to control,

and it is very difficult to apply to stainless steel and aluminum. For

these metals, special fluxes have to be used and the technique has to be

different.

One of the problems in using solder is the removal of the flux when the

joint is finished. Many of the fluxes are corrosive] even those which

are less corrosive still absorb moisture, and to obtain a good, permanent

joint cleaning is most important. The requirements for using heat and

for subsequent cleaning make these techniques not particularly well suited

for electrical wiring in buildings. Power is not always available,

particularly because it may be shut off just in those very areas where

the connections are to be made. Proper cleaning after soldering is

extremely difficult where the connection is in a wall structure. Compare

this, for example, to work done in a factory on printed circuit boards:

these boards can be easily run through special machines both for soldering

and for cleaning.

At this point it should be noted that a great many soldered joints are used

in the manufacture of electrical capacitors where the aluminum foil is

soldered to copper leads by means of special solders. These solders are approximately half zinc and half tin and are used without flux. The

procedure is to rub the parts together in such a way as to "work" the

solder into the aluminum, essentially abrading the aluminum oxide

mechanically. The system works very well and billions of such capacitors

have been manufactured and are in use.

It is possible to tin plate aluminum, using conventional resin-core solder

by a technique which is more suitable for demonstration purposes rather

than as a practical matter. The technique is to take a relatively large

soldering iron and deposit a large glob of solder and resin flux over the

tip, which is in contact with the aluminum sheet. By rubbing the soldering

iron over a small area of the aluminum sheet, the oxide can be broken while

further oxidation Is prevented by the flux and solder that surrounds the

tip. One eventually finds that the solder adheres to the aluminum and does

not move when the iron is moved. If at this point the iron is removed and

the solder is wiped off, one finds a spot of aluminum covered with tin to

which wires or other objects can now be soldered conventionally. This

technique requires a relatively large area of material to be covered, a very large amount of solder and flux compared to the joint Itself, a horizontal position of the aluminum and, in general, is not suited for

application to electrical wiring in a building.

3
Pressure Connections

A connection made between two metals by mechanical pressure is perhaps

the most widely used type of electrical connection today. These may be

of many basic types. They may be temporary connections, such as the plug

and socket used for electrical cords, or electrical components plugged

into special sockets, such as printed circuit boards and digital circuitry

plugged into special sockets, millions of vacuum tubes still plugged in and

working in sockets of millions of radio receivers and, particularly,

aluminum or brass connections used at the base of electric bulbs. In this

case, the bulb is screwed into a socket; modern bulbs usually have aluminum

bases with solder tips and they fit into sockets which are of aluminum or brass. The contacts are reasonably satisfactory except in some special

atmospheres. The number of such connections runs into the billions.

Another type of commonly used temporary connections is, for example, the

contacts of a circuit breaker. These connections are spring loaded and

vary in size from tiny things used for 15 amp circuits to tremendous

contacts used in large circuit breakers in power plants.

Where special requirements have to be met for contacts that either have to

carry current at right angle to the contact or which have to break large

currents, metal contacts are not very satisfactory and graphite compositions

are used. Examples are brushes of motors, sliding contacts in variable

voltage transformers (these are sometimes used in homes for light dimmers)

,

contacts of large circuit breakers, and so on. The advantage of the higher

resistance of the contact material Is that it prevents circulating currents

when more than one turn of a transf ormer or commutator segments are shorted. Such contacts are also good in situations where the contacts

have to withstand arcing because the material prevents the welding of

contacts. Very often, in critical applications, precious metals are used,

such as gold and silver and particularly platinum and related metals, the

latter because of the high temperature required to weld them. These

contacts, of course, are expensive and are used only where the expense

is justified.

A type of pressure connection that is used a great deal is the connection

between the heavy conductors and the terminals of lead acid batteries

used in our automobiles. Again, there are hundreds of millions of these

contacts. The lead would not normally be considered a good metal for

pressure connections because of its tendency to flow but the contacts are very heavy, and considering the fact that the starting current of an automobile may be of several hundred amperes and that the voltage available

is low, it is a high compliment to the lead connection that it works as well

as it does. In some of such contacts, steel springs are embedded in a lead terminal so as to provide the pressure while the lead itself makes

the connection.

The use of steel springs to provide pressure while the current is carried

by another metal has been used in other devices, particularly in many

4
high quality sockets for vacuum tubes manufactured many years ago.

Here, a U-shaped steel spring pressed together the copper strip that

made the connection to the pins of the vacuum tube. The idea of using

steel springs, even in simple devices to provide forces for connections,

goes back at least 50 years. I think it is a pity that such steel-backed

brass terminals are not generally used in outlets for plug-in devices in

homes

.

Coming closer to the subject of this report, there are the wire connections

that are most commonly used in outlets and switches found in our walls,

floors and ceilings. Here a wire is put under a screw and the screw head

presses the wire against some type of metal plate. These screws are generally tightened by a conventional screwdriver and this works very

well for copper wires but less satisfactorily for aluminum. In recent

years, it has become quite customary not to use a screw connection, but

simply push a wire into a hole in the device where the wire is caught

between a metal plate and a spring finger formed out of the metal of the

terminal. The edge of the spring cuts into the surface of the wire and serves both to make the electrical connection and to prevent the withdrawal

of the wire unless the spring is pushed aside by a tool.

I do not like this "backwired-type" of connection because the area of

contact between the wire and the connector is very small and the lug

must remain springy since nothing else holds the connection together.

Now, if the device ever gets hot because of a poor pin plug that does

not fit the socket well, or for whatever external reasons quite aside

from the heat due to the connection itself, the brass loses its

springiness, the wire becomes loose, and an overheated connection

results. The backwire device is cheap and easy to use, but I think

one could design an equally simple and inexpensive connection with a screw which would work with 'either copper or aluminum.

When I worked as a consultant for Cutler /Hammer , this company used

aluminum ribbons approximately two inches wide for winding the electromagnetic coils for very large lifting magnets. Here the connection was made by swaging lugs out of the ribbon into sheets of other material

which were then connected to the outside leads. A great many extruded

terminals over a very large contact area were pressed together very

firmly so as to break the oxide and provide a tight joint. The

reliability of these connections had to be very high because it is very

highly undesirable for a lifting magnet to drop its load.

Another popular connection which depends on mechanical pressure is the

wire-wrap connection. Here a rectangular or square terminal is used and

the copper wire, which may be bare copper or tinned-copper, is wrapped

tightly around this post, the number of turns being something of the order

of five to ten. This method was invented at the Bell Laboratories and is

used widely In the telephone systems and in computer construction. It is

a much better connection than one would guess at first glance. The twisting

of a wire over a small diameter, rectangular terminal "works" the wire

5
rather severely and produces great pressure at the comers, While

examining the development of this connection at Bell Labs many years

ago, 1 was shown such connections immersed in acid where most of the

wires were eaten away but the connections were still good because the

wires were in such close contact at the corners that the acid could not

attack the metal at the joints. This type of connection is relatively

easy to make as there are no loose pieces of wire to get rid of, it

requires no solder, is compact, and fast to make, but it is particularly

suited to small diameter wires. I do not know whether it is possible to

make this type of connection for the thickness of wires used in home or industrial electrical wiring.

A very popular device for connecting together two or more wire is the

wire-nut. These twist terminals consist of a cone of spring wire, such

as steel, which is surrounded by some insulating protector. The

electrical wires to be connected are fed into the cone and the cone

is turned. This does two things. It usually twists the wires together

and the spring wire cuts into the surfaces of the electrical wires,

pressing them together and thus forming an electrical connection between

them. It is not known at the present writing whether most of the current

flows between the wires themselves or through sections of the spring.

This is something that we hope to find out in the near future. It is

also of interest to us how such connections behave with copper wires as compared to how they behave with aluminum wire, or a combination of

copper and aluminum. It is surprising that steel, which we were told

many times should not be used with aluminum wire, is used extensively

(almost universally) in wire nuts.

Wire nuts are used very widely; they are easy to use and certainly much

easier to use than the type of electrical connection that was made when

I was an electrician in the 1930's. We had to solder the leads together

and cover them with rubber tape and, finally, cover the whole joint with

friction tape (a rubberized cloth compound) . The wire nuts are easy to

use; they are satisfactory, at least for copper wires, are much less so for wires of aluminum, particularly where stranded copper is connected to

solid aluminum. The use of wire nuts for aluminum wiring will be touched

on again later in this report.

Wire nuts behave quite well in laboratory tests as long as one doesn't

pass much more than the rated current through them. They almost always

fail, and fail rather rapidly, under heavier current because they don't

have much heat dissipation capacity, particularly because the connection

itself is thermally insulated, and, even if the connection is proper, the

wire and the spring get warm at currents, say, of 40 to 50 amperes. Many

of the new wire nuts (that is, recently made wire nuts) have thermoplastic

covers which melt rather easily. This means that a connection can short

to the box or to other wires when such outside insulation melts away.

Thermosetting material, such as bakelite, chars and emits a violent stench

when it gets overheated. This indicates that something is wrong. At least

6
in this respect, it is a better material but much more expensive than

the thermoplastics which are used very widely today.

Another very widely used pressure connection is the so-called crimp

connection. The wires that are to be connected together or to another

device are fed into a metal tube and the metal tube and the wires are squeezed together. This type of mechanical joint has been used not only

for electrical connections, but has been used as termination for flexible

cable drives and for many other items. When the pressure is applied

simultaneously from all directions, the metal is actually shrunk, the

diameter of the outside tube is reduced, and if the connection is properly

made so that the tube is not permitted to spring back, the connection is

very good. The inside of the tube in a common terminal, such as made by

the AMP Corporation, is made of metal which is serrated or perforated

with small holes so that when such connections are made to a wire, the

wire is squeezed or extruded into these small holes. This breaks the

oxide and increases the area of contact greatly so that a very good bond

is produced between the tube metal and the wire. In the AMP terminal,

one side .of the crimp connection is made re-entrant; that is, the tube

curvature is turned inside out. This prevents the tube from springing

back which, unfortunately, occurs with connections which are not as well

designed.

One of the problems with crimp connections is that they must be made with

proper tools and the closing distance ox the dies must be controlled so

as to squeeze the joint the correct amount. If too little squeeze is

provided, the connection is not good enough because the wire is not

deformed sufficiently and not squeezed into the perforations inside the

tube. If, on the other hand, the wire is squeezed too hard, it can be

cut and the connection can be destroyed. For these reasons, the tools

that are used for crimp connections have carefully designed dies and

require considerable pressure. In a factory environment, they are almost

invariably power-driven, either pneumatically, hydraulically or by

electrical motors, and the dies are designed for particular connectors

and for a particular number of wires. In house wiring, these tools are difficult to use because they generally require power, are not convenient

in crowded space, and there is a great danger that the improper tool

would be used, producing an improper connection. There are hand-operated

tools, but they are rather clumsy and difficult to use with only two hands.

A crimp connection is rather large as compared to, say, a screw terminal,

and because the space in modem wall boxes is rather limited, such

connections are usually covered by an insulating sleeve. These sleeves

are applied loose and then shrunk by the application of heat. Again, this

requires that heat must be available, which is not always convenient, and

the unfortunate thing about the insulation cover is that it hides the

connection, making inspection either very difficult or impossible.

Another problem with crimp tools is that they are quite expensive. Also,

the changing of dies is not a trivial matter and it must be done correctly

7
for changes in size of wire or type of connector. Such tools are particularly suitable for large-scale factory production where the same type of a connection is to be made over and over again. They

are not as suitable for house wiring where the number of leads may

vary and the size of wire may vary from terminal to terminal. A

crimp tool is a particularly risky tool, as far as quality control

is concerned, if it is used by inexperienced, untrained or lightly

trained help with little supervision followed by poor inspection.

There is the additional danger that, if the right tool is not available,

an ordinary pair of pliers would be used to crimp such a connection with

the result hidden by an insulating sleeve. This would be a worse con- nection than even that of the poorest screw terminal. When crimp

connections are used in a factory, the wires are stripped by machines

to exactly the right length and the machines are carefully adjusted to

avoid nicking the wire. The lugs and crimp connections are supplied in

labeled boxes and the workers do the same task over and over again, day

after day. If they use the wrong lug, say, it soon shows up, the

inspector notices it and the mistake is corrected; but these workers

are not wiring terminals on a basement floor or in an attic; they are not pick-up people from the street who are induced by various means to

be in a great hurry. In the high-quality wiring or devices for military

use and computers, the workers are certainly not in a hurry; they are required to do a good job. Therefore, to say (as I have heard) that a crimp terminal is a good connection makes no sense unless the conditions

are carefully specified. In fact, there are more wrong ways to use a crimp terminal than there are wrong ways of making a binding screw

connection.

There is still another problem when crimp lugs are to be used with screw

terminals. The new CO/ALR equipment has a provision for controlling the

position of the wires. A small notch is provided in the insulation

material of the outlet or switch through which the wire is to pass,

preventing it from turning or loosening the screw. This particular

notch interferes with the use of a crimp device if it is to be used

under the screw head so that one would probably be forced to use pigtailing techniques: a short piece of copper wire can be connected to

the aluminum wire by means of an interconnecting lug, then the copper

wire placed under the head of the screw in the outlet or the switch.

Such an arrangement requires more space in the box than a direct

connection to the screw, besides being expensive. It certainly doesn't

look like a proper approach except as a makeshift.

In discussing pressure connections of any type, it is particularly important

to remember that the effect that keeps two or more bodies in tight contact,

whether they are joined for electrical reasons or for mechanical reasons,

is the fact that something is constantly pulling or pushing them together.

This means that under normal conditions a spring force must be applied

to the joint for as long as the bodies have to be pressed together. In

an electrical connection, such as a screw type, for example, the force

may come from the fact that the screw head is deformed, the screw itself

8
is stretched,, the plate under the wire is deformed, or the wire itself

provides some spring force and, in fact, all of these elements combine

to produce a tight connection. As long as the elastic forces remain

in effect, the joint can be reasonably tight. If, for some reason,

the elastic forces go to zero - that is, either the wire shrinks or the other members of the structure relax (that is, lose their spring

tension), the joint, becomes loose. This is a most important note for some of the things that will follow in this report.

This problem of maintaining pressure between bodies for electrical

reasons has been recognized for a long time and the patent literature,

among other data, is full of techniques for maintaining such pressures.

Springs of various types are employed, for example, in power plants

where connections between busbars must be kept tight. Belleville

washers are probably the most common means to do this. Belleville

washers are cone-shape washers which act as springs. They can easily

be put under the head of a bolt or under the nut and when tightened

are flattened and provide rather large forces. As far as I know, they are not used today in house wiring devices and I think that this is

something that certainly should be looked into. I will have more to

say about this when I get to the specifics of aluminum wiring.

The traditional method of connecting wires in home devices and in much

electrical equipment today is to place the wire under the head of a screw or into a hole where the screw tip can be pressed against the wire.

This last technique, using a set-screw, is common in many European fixtures

and devices, providing a simple and a fast connection. Unfortunately,

the wire is often cut by the screw, particularly when stranded wire is

used. Hence, American technology tends to avoid this technique. (I know

of no American device that uses such screw connections but I have seen a great many European devices that do.) American devices which are not

wired in a factory generally use binder-head screws. The wire is wrapped

around the screw and the head is brought down to hold the wire. Usually

the screw does not fit into a nut but into a threaded hole in a brass

plate. The brass plate may be extruded slightly before the thread is

cut, providing more material for the threads. The female thread may

contain no more than 1-1/2 to 2 threads. This leads to some difficulty

which I will discuss later. Good workmanship requires that the wrapped

wire not cross itself before the screw is tightened. The crossover tends

to cut the wire and subsequent bending may break the wire at this point.

If the screw is cocked by the crossover, it may jam the thread and, with

aluminum wire, high pressure at that point may cause very high creep and

the screw may later loosen. Heat is generated in the small area of such

a joint. This is highly undesirable for aluminum wiring because oxide

formation, expansion, contraction and many other problems are reduced if

the temperature is kept at a constant and low value. For these reasons,

crossover connections are not considered to be good practice.

Aluminum Wiring in Homes

Aluminum wiring was put on the market for wiring of residences without

much fanfare and general discussion in the 1950’s and 1960’s. As far as

9
I know, there was no attempt to redesign the connectors from the types

that were used for copper. This is in contrast to industrial connections

which have been designed for the combination of elements that were to

be connected. Conductors in power plants, high tension wires and

lead-ins, and their connections have been designed for each other during,

perhaps, three-quarters of a century.

Trouble developed when aluminum wire went into home use although it is

very difficult to say that the troubles really were much greater than

occurred with copper. The oral evidence that I have heard from many

people in the Washington area and across the country suggests that

aluminum gave more trouble, more over-heating, more flickering of

lights, etc., but the data is not open and shut. Eventually, the

connectors (that is, the equipment that was used with aluminum) were

modified in response to complaints. An intermediate device marked

"copper aluminum" lasted a short time; then the CO/ALR devices went

into production.

The CO/ALR device differs from the earlier devices in that the screws

are of brass and have larger heads; the wire fits into a groove under

the screw head so that it is captured better; the plate on which the

wire rests is serrated; many of the devices are indium plated; and the

wire has some restraint so that when one pushes the whole device into

a box in a wall, the twisting of the wires does not tend to turn the screws. It is my own personal opinion that these wire restraints are not good enough and that the wire should be captured by a positive

restraint, not just a notch in the frame of the connector. It can easily slip out of such restraints, which results in undesirable torque

on the screw. Fortunately, the serrations on the plate do lock the wire

quite well and it is less likely that the screw will turn in the CO/ALR

device - very much less likely than in the old-fashioned smooth-plate

no-restraint contact.

At this point, let me review the characteristics of aluminum wire that

make simple connections difficult. Aluminum creeps; it oxidizes readily;

its oxide is a superb insulator; and the oxide is brittle. Aluminum is

mechanically not as good as copper; it has to be thicker for the same current-carrying capacity; some alloys get cold-work rather easily and

become brittle. However, it is a good electrical conductor and should

be usable with suitable terminations. Historically, aluminum conductors

have been used in industry for a long time.

In industry, aluminum has long been used for busbars in power plants

where it costs less for given current requirements and also because of

the greater stiffness for a given current-carrying capacity. This is

important in case of short circuits. Busbar connections are made with

heavy bolts; the aluminum is sometimes plated with other metals; the

joints are periodically inspected and the bolts retightened. Belleville

washers are usually used to maintain pressure in the joints as the aluminum

creeps

10
Aluminum has also been used for high tension wires for power

transmission. Quite often the wires combine steel cords for coping

with the mechanical stresses with aluminum to carry the current.

Aluminum is also widely used for service leads into the home, and

sometimes for heavy duty use even where the home is otherwise wired

with copper.

Aluminum wire is used now extensively in winding motors and generators

and has been used in squirrel cages of induction motors for a long time

because of its' special characteristics. When it is used in electrical

motors as, for example, for hand-held drills, the connections are sometimes made by conductive epoxies, which usually consist of a binder

loaded with a conductive material such as silver powder. This cement

applied to the terminal makes a satisfactory connection in many

applications, as in small power tools. The technique is simple, but

it must be done correctly with the proper material applied in the right

consistency; otherwise, the joint will not be conductive. It must be

cured properly and must not spread beyond its intended site, for a running joint can cause trouble. This type of connection, too, is not

a likely candidate for home wiring use.

It is obvious from the literature and the patent art that aluminum is

certainly acceptable as a conductor, but industrial connections are more

carefully made and with better tools by better workmen than are apt to

be found when wiring residences. Industrial connections with thin wire

are usually of the crimp type. The wire ends are carefully cleaned of

their insulation and sometimes wire-brushed to remove as much oxide as possible. The wire is inserted into heavy duty connectors, which can either be bolted together or crimped by special power tools. Sometimes

the wire is covered by grease with suspended metal powder in order to

deter oxidation, then great pressure is applied to deform the aluminum.

Any oxide present is broken during deformation, making for a good

electrical connection.. This doesn’t always work well and service leads

do occasionally give trouble in homes, requiring that the connections be

redone. Depending on luck and workmanship, by and large the process works.

It should also be realized that service entrance connections to homes are often via conduit or pipe, so that the danger of fire is relatively small.

Home distribution panels are virtually always in steel boxes, as contrasted

to the plastic boxes that are sometimes used in walls. The connections

for heavy duty leads, such as lead-ins, are usually of the saddle type,

where aluminum is not. pressed under the screw heads, but is captured In a clamping device with a moving plate which, 'in turn, is driven by a large

bolt. This can be driven by a wrench so that the connection squeezes the

wire and deforms it under great pressure. The springiness of such con- nections helps to maintain the pressure. As I said, this type of connection

doesn't always last but, generally speaking, is satisfactory.

Home wiring involves not only the lighter gauges, normally 14 or 12 for

copper or 12 and 10 for aluminum, but also the heavier wires used for

11
servicing air conditioners, electric heating systems, washing machines,

etc. I have the impression that the heavier circuits have given as much

trouble as the lighter; hence, any discussion of home wiring standards

should cover these also.

Good copper connections are much easier to make. We know from extensive

experience that an ordinary screw connection on copper, or a simple

crimp connection, or a pressure lug, all work quite well. If the

workmanship is even partly satisfactory, the connection is satisfactory,

although not as satisfactory as commonly believed. Certainly copper

joints are not trouble free, but a good copper connection can be made

much more easily than a good aluminum connection.

Without going into the economics, we can note that the electrical outlets,

switches, and other home items have to be inexpensive in manufacture and

installation. In fact, installing a device is usually more expensive

than its original cost. Military or computer applications often call

for high quality connections which cost more than the equipment to be

connected. A $3.00 connector might be used for a device with a dollar’s

worth of electronics. This is not attractive for home use.

When reports of trouble with aluminum wiring were first encountered,

NBS was asked to look into the problem. It was found, as one might

expect, that many of the reports of difficulties were poorly documented.

In some cases, it was suspected that whenever a fire occurred due to

unknown causes, it was easier to blame electrical wiring than anything

else. Nevertheless, there was considerable evidence, and I certainly saw enough samples of wire brought to us, that showed that aluminum wire does

give trouble. Our initial interest in the mechanics of aluminum wire

connections reflected the following viewpoint: O.K. , the wire creeps

and the connection has to maintain pressure on the wire while it creeps.

A. How much does the wire creep in thickness?

B. How much spring is there in the connection to follow this creep?

We were told by industry representatives that they had not tested the wire

itself for creep, but had tested the aluminum from which it is made. We

made creep tests at NBS, applying loads to wire loops in the range applied

by nominal screw heads. In one case, creep of approximately 6 mils was observed in the course of a week. In general, as is normal, the initial

creep rates tended to be high but decreased with time. This is especially

true as round wire flattens and its geometry changes. We found that one aluminum wire was almost as good as copper, but that some wires were very

much worse.

We also made some exploratory measurements on the springiness of the

connectors, using different kinds of connectors and different techniques

to simulate the geometry as it would be with a wire present. Two half-round

steel washers were placed between the screw head and the plate, with an

12
open-sectored tapered metal strip between them. After the screw and

the washer sandwich were tightened, the middle piece, whose taper was

about one-thousandth of an inch per inch, was slowly pulled out. The

distance and magnitude of pull required before the connection became

loose indicated how much the connection "followed." For example,

pulling out two inches before it became loose implied that no pressure

would be left at the end of two mils of wire creep. As expected, for

small distances the "spring" of the connectors proved to be quite linear,

but they could follow for only 3 to 6 mils. The springiness of this kind

of connection seems to come mainly from the flat plate, which is dished

slightly as the screw is tightened. I suppose that the screw is lengthened

very slightly and the head of the screw also acts as a flat spring. (See

attached memorandum dated April 21, 1975, from Larry Andrews.)

We did not determine what provided the springiness and it probably

doesn’t matter as long as the components are made more or less of the same metal. In my judgment, however, the amount of spring in the

connection was really not enough to make a good connection. Secondly,

I have serious doubts that the CO/ALR device is good enough just because

it tests satisfactorily under our over-current tests. I believe that,

for the expected creep of wire over the lifetime of a home (perhaps

50 to 100 years) , the force on the wire in a good connection should not

decrease by more than 50%. For extra safety, one should assume that the

wire creeps under constant load which, of course, is not the case in

practice. Let us suppose that the wire is tested under constant load,

namely the initial load, and the creep is predicted on the basis of such

observations over a year or two. (Very simple special equipment can be

made just for testing creep of wires.) If the creep is expected to be,

say, 6 mils in 50 years, then the connection should be made to follow

6 mils and lose no more than half of its initial force during this period.

In order to examine the connection interface, bonding, etc., further, we embedded some wire assemblies in epoxy cement. We then sectioned the

screw, the plate and the wire and we found that the threads were, at best,

marginal. Between the screw and the plate the threads were badly deformed;

the thread angle was not at all like the original. It is amazing that

they don’t strip more often than they do. In fact, the instructions to

the electrical trade for using a CO/ALR device with #14 copper wire (which

gives less friction because of its smaller diameter and because copper has

less friction than aluminum) warn that, in tightening the screw as hard as possible, a strong man can easily strip the screw or the thread in the

plate. Thus, if the electrician tightens the screw with aluminum or with

copper, the screw may be nearly stripped. With appreciable heating of the

connection during a summer air-conditioned cycle, the screw might fail

mechanically and the loose connection can lead to run-away heat conditions.

However, we have not checked this theory by actual tests.

We made some extended tests of various connections and found that the

CO/ALR device did, in fact, pass an over-current test where a current of

13
some 40 to 50 amps was passed periodically through the connector and

the connector was permitted to cool down, after which it was cycled

again, and so on. It is obvious from the test that certainly, as far

as laboratory conditions go, the CO/ALR device appears, at least under

the conditions which we used and for the period of time which we tested

it, to be satisfactory. I am concerned, as I said above, about its

being really good enough, because I can conceive of another possible

situation which we mentioned in one of our earlier aluminum wire reports.

Consider the scenario of a wire under very heavy stress and the outlet

located in an outside wall warmed by the sun. With maximum current

drawn, as for air conditioning, even a correctly made joint can become

quite hot. The connection as a whole expands, but the wire tends to

expand at a greater rate, hence it creeps laterally. The connection may

stay tight for the summer, but then the air conditioner is shut off and

the wall becomes very cold. The outside temperature may drop well below

freezing. Now the wire contracts more than the rest of the connector and

the connection may become very loose. A heavy current drain through this

poor connection (as by a space heater), or elsewhere along the circuit,

causes overheating because the wire is loose and has oxidized by virtue

of that looseness. If it survives the winter, the connection is not as good the following summer because of the oxide that was formed and the

change in dimensions. It is entirely possible that the connection will

become completely unsatisfactory after this type of annual cycling, running

away in the second or third summer, or In the second or third winter.

There is another possible source of heat, independent of the connection

itself. It is very common for a conventional pronged plug, as used in

the United States, not to fit well into the wall outlet. If the current

through the plug is appreciable, as with a vacuum cleaner, space heater,

or refrigerator, the outlet will get very hot and may even arc continuously.

Since the physical connection from one socket of the receptacle to the

two screws is one piece of brass, the heat will be transmitted to the wire

connection and may act to bring on failure.

It should also be noted that the brass in the connector tends to lose its

springiness when it gets hot, as is true of most metals. Brass is not

very good in this respect, which means that the spring of the connections,

both to the pin plug that is inserted by the user and to the wire, may

become worse as the device gets hotter. In other words, all the effects

of heat are to make the heat more likely and to Increase the voltage drop.

Therefore, the temperature rises as the energy dissipated in the connection

goes up and the situation gets progressively worse. This is not hypothetical:

I have examined plug-pins in my own home which caused overheating of

connectors because other members of the household failed to observe or correct bent pins. In fact, either the springs inside the connector should

have been corrected or the whole connector should have been changed. Although

I do so at home, very few people change the connector when it doesn't feel

tight when a plug is inserted. This can lead to trouble, not only with

aluminum wiring but with copper wire as well.

14
It should be noted that a bad connection, not only where the wire

joins a screw but a hot joint of any kind (for example, from the outside

influence of the pins, or because of the wire itself) can lead to the

melting of insulations. Since the group of wires squeezed into the

box presses against the side of the box (which may be metal) and wire

against wire, shorts become likely. (We have seen cases where the

thermoplastic wire insulation has melted for one or two inches back

from the connection.) The short-circuit current may be great enough

to "blow" the fuse or trip the circuit breaker. (Circuit breakers are better than fuses in one respect - they cannot be bypassed as easily as fuses.) This generally leads to repair of the bad connection. But the

connection may not be quite bad enough for breaking the circuit, but

be just a poor, high resistance connection, particularly with aluminum

wiring.

There is a related heat problem concerning insulated boxes made of

plastic. An NBS staff member inspected a house on Long Island where a person died. The boxes were plastic and one had disappeared completely.

I would prefer a metal box to contain the heat and cause a definite short

if the insulation melts. I feel that tripping the circuit breaker is

preferable to the wires melting the box, shorting to each other, and

starting a fire due to trash in the wall or wallpaper that’s been pushed

into the box when the cover was put on. However, current codes permit

plastic boxes. The ideal box might be metal with an internal lining to

provide electrical insulation but thin enough to be thermally conductive

so as to dissipate heat through the box. I think that this is too much

to ask, so I would compromise on the metal box for the conventional type

of outlet or switch.

If I were today writing a standard for the future, I would require a larger box so that one could put in the connections without using one's

foot to drive them in, have enough room for pigtails, if necessary, or minor repairs, and accommodate solid state light controls which are often

substituted for conventional switches. (There are other electronic

devices to be considered, such as wall switches operated by proximity

rather than by contact. People don't like dirty wall switches and would

pay a premium for a switch that you don't touch - in fact, just the

presence of a human being could turn the lights on. This is not the

product of my imagination: companies are working on this and I expect

to see them in the very near future.) The boxes therefore must be

bigger, particularly for aluminum wire, which is thicker and harder

to dress into the box. The box may be made taller if normal horizontal

spacing is to be retained, or wider. Also, the wide availability of such

boxes needs to be assured.

At this point, I would like to say something about the use of wire nuts

with aluminum wiring. Wire nuts work quite well with solid wire and

small currents, but with stranded wire or heavy current the story is

quite different. If one twists stranded copper wire with solid aluminum

15
wire, as is often done for ceiling fixtures or other equipment with

stranded leads, the connection is very poor. The wire nut cuts the

thin strands of copper readily and, in fact, often cuts them off and

may not bite into the aluminum wire at all because of the overlay of

copper wire.

If I had to connect a stranded copper wire to an aluminum conductor in

a box, I would first connect a solid copper wire to the aluminum wire.

I would then connect the solid copper to the stranded copper with another

wire nut. As a matter of fact, it would be very convenient if the

fixtures came with solid pigtails already connected. Unfortunately,

the length of leads cannot be predetermined, particularly for ceiling

fixtures which must be "dropped" before you can connect them. Perhaps

a foot of flexible lead is needed and stranded copper is almost universally

used there. Pigtailing is probably the correct technique here. One could

design special crimp connectors for stranded wire but, again, the

objections to crimp tools, techniques, and inspection would still apply.

I would rather have a wire nut that I can remove, inspect the joint, and

then restore.

There has been widespread use of wire nuts in very heavy current circuits.

In a Montgomery County, Maryland community, for example, heavy wires were

brought into electrical heating systems that required some 40 amperes.

Improper connectors were used and various kinds of failure have occurred.

In such cases, the Inspector or worker (usually from the utility company)

installs a saddle connection where the wire lead and the lead from the

heating system are inserted into the saddle, the bolt is tightened and

the whole thing is heavily taped, making quite a good connection. Wire

nuts should certainly not be permitted in such applications.

Some Experimental Connectors

In order to get a better feel for the problem of wire creep, we made up some experimental connectors, including some where the wire was captured

between a screw undercut in the exact shape of the wire and the plate

cut in the other sense, so that the wire lay in a closely fitting groove

(See Figure 1). A lead-in groove in the connector kept the wire lead-in

from being cut by the two close fitting grooves. The connection was

very good; the wire did not seem to creep. We tested them at high

temperature to detect any looseness when cycled or heated well above what

any connection should stand, i.e., several hundred degrees C. Although

some became corroded, they stayed tight. Theoretically, the wire can creep in such a connection, but only lengthwise. Such creep length is

very great and the wire has to creep along the surface, so that the high

friction of the wire keeps it from creeping. Obviously, if one uses a long wire and holds it for its entire length, the end creep - the

longitudinal creep - will be very small; if the pressure is high, the

friction forces are also very high. The screws recovered from these

tests are white where they contacted the wire. In other words, we rubbed off enough aluminum to make a good bond between the aluminum and

the brass of the screw.

16
Figure 1

TMi»

*5

-

Experimental connector designed for a particular size of aluminum

wire. Also shown are special screws, the heads of which are sheared

off when the proper tightening torque is reached.

I also wanted to design a screw to control the fastening torque

independently of the skill of the operator. I had the NBS Shops

Division make up some double-headed screws where the upper head would

be stripped off when the specified torque (about 12 inch-pounds) was

reached. The lower head for the working section of this type of screw

is unslotted, so it should have a hexagonal shape for later removal,

when necessary, with a socket wrench. (These are not original ideas;

at one time a U.S. manufacturer made screws on a continuous string, with

each screw driven by the next. The screw tip was sheared off when the

head of the screw ahead was bottomed, and the whole string of screws was driven by a socket wrench. Feeding was easy and the torque was controlled

by the shearing forces. Nuts are also made this way and this art is old.)

An alternative to the double-headed screw might be a molded plastic head

over a standard screw (also shown in Figure 1). This head could be

stripped off by the screwdriver. A screw without the plastic head

implies that it was tightened correctly, at least once, although not

necessarily subsequently.

During our work on the connectors, we discovered, somewhat to our surprise,

that about three-fifths or four-fifths of the current flowing from

aluminum wire to the screw terminal flowed through the screw while the

remainder went directly to the plate. (General Electric engineers told

us that they knew this.) The obvious explanation is that the screw

scratches the wire and wipes off the oxide; the surfaces don’t slide

against each other very well so the contact between the screw head and

the wire is rather intimate. This does not occur between a plate and a wire where no rubbing occurs. This is why one gets a better connection

if the plate is serrated. This brings me to a rather interesting development of one manufacturer who made a washer that was U-shaped so that it

could be slipped over the screw without the (usually captive) screw being

taken out. The washer, of a hard brass alloy, had teeth on both sides

like those on a wood rasp. The washer was put over the plate of the

connection, the aluminum wire put over the washer, and the assembly was tightened conventionally. This passed the UL test for wiring, but the

manufacturer did not want to sell the washer and UL does not approve them.

The reasoning is very interesting and important to our discussion. The

washer wasn't deficient as a fix for the problem of aluminum wire because

it bit into the plate below and the wire above, producing a good connection.

However, a person making a connection may leave out the washer or place

it above the wire (a customary site for a washer ) - in the latter case,

the screw could not be turned at all or only with great difficulty; the

pressure would be low and the wire might be wrapped around or torn to

bits. It was an excellent washer electrically, but not a good washer

from the point of view of human factors.

I touched on this subject of human factor connections with crimp connections

and, of course, this is a problem that rises in connection with all tools

and equipment that people have to use and certainly with the things they

have to do in wiring. The double-toothed washer did not go on the market

because of human factors, not technical factors. Any similar device should

17
be designed so that the human operator can't easily foul up the intent.

This led me to design a connector, shown in Figures 2 and 3, where the

wire was to be placed between two sections of the same brass sheet and

the screw was not part of the circuit. I put one Belleville washer

under the screw head and one under the nut. In fact, the nut could be

a Belleville washer itself. The advantage of two Belleville washers

is that they have considerable distance of spring force for following

the creep of the wire. The screw for this connector can be steel,

saving money and preventing stripping; more thread can be provided in

the nut than the single thread in a piece of brass. Another advantage

of this connection was not obvious at first: the contact between a Belleville washer and the screw head above it is right next to the

stem, at a small radius. The frictional torque is initially relatively

low, so that the screw is easy to drive. When the washer suddenly

flattens, the friction force shifts to the outside rim of the head; the

torque increases suddenly and "bottoming" is sensed. This indicates

that the Belleville washers have been compressed and the limit reached.

As a further advantage, visual inspection, without removing the outlet

from the wail, can reveal that the washer is compressed and the force

on the wire is correct and, therefore, that the connection has been made

and tightened properly. This seems to be a good criterion for all

connections: they should be visually, or at least easily, inspectable.

A visual inspection, without removing the device from the box, is

attractive, especially because inspectors don't like to carry tools or use gadgets. This has some bearing on my following remarks about crimp

connections. When the NBS Patent Adviser's Office made a patent search

on the idea of Figure 2, the idea was found to be old. It was described,

almost exactly as I designed it, by Patent No. 1,296,061 issued in 1919!

Many other ideas have occurred to us and the possibilities for inventions

are endless. For example, outlets and switches have been made with

pigtails attached. Such pigtails could be connected, if they are made

of solid wire, to aluminum wire or to other copper wire by wire nuts.

This should certainly be a great deal easier than using screw terminal

connections. Another possibility is to provide studs on the back of an outlet or a switch or a circuit breaker that would be, say, about an inch

long to which a wire could be connected with a wire nut. This stud should

be no longer than necessary; it would be directly in back of the device

so it would not require side space and if the device is properly designed

there should be enough room behind the device to handle this connector.

If wire-wrap were possible for thick wire, then such studs could be used

with proper wire-wrap tools.

Another idea would be a device, such as shown in Figure 4, where one simply inserts a wire into a hole and turns a screw which wedges the wire

into the connection. The screw, which could be self- tapping , would bite

into the wire find bite into the wall of the structure so as to wedge both

itself and the wire and deform the wire in the process. I have used such

a set-screw to hold the small wheel onto a shaft where the wheel had to

18
Figure 2 - Experimental connector for aluminum or copper wire designed to be used

with Belleville washers so as to compensate for the creep of the wire.

The screw does not carry current.

Figure 3 - Another view of the connector in Figure 2

Figure 4 - Experimental connector for wire using a screw wedge.

spin at very high speeds and where I did not want the outside surface

of the wheel to have any set-screw holes. By using two set-screws, one

on each side of the wheel, the wheel remains balanced and the wedging of

the set-screw against the shaft, as it would do here against the wire,

held the system very tight. In the photograph of Figure 4, I show a conventional screw with a regular screwdriver head, but it could be a set-screw with a head for a socket wrench. This would make the whole

thing much more compact and the set-screw could be nearly flush with

the surface of the connection. In the design shown, the wire is

perpendicular to the device and the screw is at an angle; the components

could be interchanged so that the screw would be perpendicular and the

wire come in at an angle. In this particular version, I threaded the

hole into which the wire fits so as to produce a serrated surface and to

cut through the oxide of the wire. The connection was not tested; it was made just to get the "feelu of such a construction. It certainly

is easy to use and the wire is held very firmly.

While on the subject of set-screws, screwdriver heads and so on, I would

like to stress another point which relates to the present screwdriver

slot, a historical misfortune in many ways. The slots are easy to make

by a milling cutter in automatic screw machines, but most modern screws

are no longer cut on screw machines: they are forged out of solid material,

thus eliminating waste. A socket head can easily be upset on a forged

screw. Hexagonal sockets are most common, but they require an accurate

fit between the wrench and the socket and high quality of steel. For

electrical connectors, I would prefer a square socket hole, such as the

Canadians use for electrical wiring. I do so for several reasons. First,

it is easy to manufacture by an upsetting machine. Secondly, the screw- driver blade is a very simple square shaft. (Screwdrivers, as a matter

of fact, often start with square shafts and then are forged or shaped

into the wedge blade with which we are familiar.) A square shaft does

not require close tolerances to drive properly; it is very easy to grind

when the edges get rounded. It's much harder to properly sharpen a conventional screwdriver. Also, a socket driver - particularly when

driven by a motor - does not fall out of the slot and gouge the surroundings.

Among other considerations, if socket screws are adopted for a new generation of devices, a glance at an installed device (or one on the

store shelf) would show that this is the latest, improved type which meets

the newest code. It is important that the inspector not have to take it

out to locate special markings (e.g., "CO/ALR 2"). Incidentally, a square

socket can be driven with a conventional screwdriver of the right size

although this isn't the recommended procedure. I think that every home

mechanic now has at least one set of socket wrenches, and one additional

set can have square shanks. Very few sizes would be needed.

While this report is concerned with wiring, in general, and not only with

fixes for homes that have old-fashioned connectors and old type wire,

I would like to come back to a fix that is being proposed and seriously

19
considered, and that is to use crimp connectors as a general fix for

houses that have aluminum wiring. I also have the feeling that the

proposal to use crimp connections is intended not only as a short-term

fix, but also as a permanent part of a standard for the future. The

whole idea of going to crimp lugs doesn't make much sense to me.

For older homes, expensive makeshifts may be justified, A standard for

the future rightfully should not specify an expensive system which uses extra parts, extra gadgetry, and very special tools, especially if there

are other possible approaches. We understand that various companies are working on new outlets, new switches and new contacts, and their engineers

admit freely that they could certainly make better connectors than the

20- 30c items now produced. It seems to me that the industry should be

asked to come up with better connections even if CO/ALR devices are good

enough, as our tests show. In spite of my doubts, I could not swear in

court today that the CO/ALR connection isn't good enough. The fact that

I may be suspicious of the springiness of the connections, or that the

threads can be stripped, is insufficient reason to outlaw them. If I had properly installed, indium plated, CO/ALR devices in my house,

particularly with nickel plating under the indium, I would sleep easy

and not worry.

With regard to indium plating, I talked to its inventor. He definitely

believes that indium is necessary, apparently because it protrudes or extrudes through the cracks of the oxide and, by whatever means, makes

good connection to the aluminum. He was also sure that the indium should

be underplated with nickel. The laboratory where he worked tried various

other metals, but nickel keeps the indium from interdif fusing with the

brass or copper alloy and stays soft for many years. We made rather

limited tests using interdif fused indium; that is, we interdif fused it

by accelerated heat tests and the connections still stood up. That was not too surprising because the CO/ALR devices work quite well without

indium although the resistance is somewhat higher. Additional testing is

probably required but, to play safe, I would take the advice of a man who

obviously spent a great deal of time and money on this, and demand nickel

plating under the indium of CO/ALR devices.

Having noted some of the difficulties with crimp lugs that do not fit many

old-time devices and do not fit well into the new CO/ALR equipment, I would strongly advise our decision makers not to use crimp connections

for aluminum wire. This would require the abandonment of most CO/ALR

devices used today in favor of old-style devices without the wire capturing

lugs, hopefully with such devices converted back to original shape except

that they would use brass screws. All of the CO/ALR devices in production

and stocked by dealers, electrical supply houses, and electricians would

have to be abandoned if crimp lugs are to be used and there would be a tremendous quantity of these throughout the country by the time a standard

on crimp connectors would go into effect. In general, this is an expensive

and difficult way to go.

20
Knowing the difficulties encountered with the simple toothed washers

and in tightening ordinary screws correctly with a screwdriver - or forgetting to tighten - can we expect tens of thousands of electricians

(professional and amateur), piece-workers, and pick-up people to use expensive tools correctly?

In any case, I doubt if there are enough tools to supply the American

requirements for quite a few years to come. I am very sure that people

will use inappropriate terminals, either wittingly or unwittingly. Hany

people will simply use a pair of pliers for clamping rather than making

an effort to buy or borrow the right tool. Although I'm a careful worker

and know where I can borrow the right tools, and in spite of the fact that

I once designed watches, I confess that to regulate a watch I open it with

a pair of pliers or use some other makeshift tool to get into the notches

in the watchcase to unscrew it. If I do this to a watch, I certainly

will not go out to buy a special tool and the correct lugs to connect a wire. Then, too, the people who rent the tools may not sell the appropriate

crimp lugs, and so on.

Other Concepts

We also investigated alarm systems rather than wire fixes. For example,

there's a company near this city that makes indicators for frozen foods.

These change color when a package of frozen food has been defrosted.

They made up a number of similar indicators, to be attached to the cover

of an outlet box, that would permanently change color if the temperature

of the box rises beyond a preset value (see Figure 5) . We tested such

devices and found no technical problems. The difficulty is that many

outlet boxes are hidden by furniture or drapes, so the color warnings

may not be effective.

I also suggested the use of a plastic covered pellet that would melt at some temperature, say 100° C or perhaps less, and release a pungent odor.

If one is worried, he can open a box, drop in a pellet (assuming that it's

nonconducting) , then close the box. At least this is better than simply

worrying about the problem.

There are valid objections to such suggestions, and I agree with the

general philosophy that the connection should be good in the first place,

and that such makeshifts are undesirable. According to the same philosophy,

crimps should not be adopted either because they, too, are a makeshift.

It does not seem sensible to take a wire which can be connected directly

to a device and interpose another device rather than building the connector

into the device itself.

Conclusions

I believe that it is time for the manufacturers and installers of electrical

wiring in homes to use equipment which is compatible with our advanced

technology - something which I believe our present outlets and switches are not

21
I think that the industry should design the connections in such a way

that inspection is easy because I have great doubts that inspectors

spend enough time and effort to inspect the present connections. By

this I mean that it should be easy to open the box and look inside to see whether (a) the piece of equipment is the latest correct type, and

(b) whether it was properly used.

I believe that a standard for home wiring should cover copper as well as aluminum wire because many homes have both aluminum and copper wiring

and aluminum may replace copper if copper becomes in short supply again.

I think that all connectors and all switches should be usable with either

copper or aluminum and I do not see how one can justify two different

kinds if the cost difference between them could be small. Since the

labor for installing them is so expensive now, a differential of, say,

10% in the cost of the device should have an insignificant effect on the

total cost of the home or even a single repair installation. As a matter

of fact, good connectors for aluminum, as far as I know, without exception

also make good connectors for copper and, therefore, a common standard

should specify equal performance and equal design for both, except where

absolutely necessary to indicate a difference.

In general, the quality of workmanship, ease of inspection and other

aspects of wiring should be universal and poor connections for copper

should not be tolerated any more than poor connections for aluminum.

Also, many mistakes can and will be avoided if a customer can buy only

one kind of outlet or switch; that is, one which can be used with any

wires so he or she doesn't have to make the right match. If two or more

options are available, there is a significant chance that the wrong one will be used due to carelessness, greed, ignorance, or stupidity of the

buyer.

While I understand the reasons for the drive to produce some quick fix

to take care of houses which have aluminum wiring of the old type and

connections of even older type, I think that the Government should not

endorse a solution which is known to be merely a stopgap and which is

likely to become permanent.

22
Figure 5 - Heat indicator for a wall plate over a switch or wall socket. The

color of the indicator changes at the pre-set temperature of 125° F.

tc

c UN1ITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

April 21, 1975

MEMORANDUM FOR Sid Greenwald

From: Larry Andrews

Subject: Screw Compliance of Electrical Outlets

The effect of plastic flow in reducing the clamping force on a wire

depends upon the springiness or compliance of the screw and plate

combination. The following experiments were made to determine the

magnitude of this clamping compliance in some typical electrical outlets.

Rather than measure screw-plate deformation directly as a function of

axial screw pressure, the screw torque was measured as a function of

angular position of the screw. This is a very simple measurement to

make and avoids considerable instrumentation. This approach is

reasonable if the coefficient of friction is constant and the screw

lead is uniform. To minimize the effect of initial plastic flow of

the threads on screw and plate during initial loading, the screws were

tightened several times until repeatable torque-position cruves were

obtained.

Measurements were made on four types of regular duplex outlets and one CO/ALR outlet. Wherever possible, hardened steel washers were used

under the screw heads in place of a loop of wire. These washers were equivalent in thickness to number 12 wire and were beveled to simulate

the shape of a round wire. Washers could not be used on the "D"*

outlet. It was therefore measured using a loop of hard brass wire.

Two things were noticeable about the n D" outlet with this type of screw

load; the screw appeared to have considerable more compliance, and it was more difficult to obtain repeatable results. To determine what

effect the use of the loop rather than full 360° washers had in

modifying the screw-plate compliance, the "C" outlet was re-measured

using the same loop. The results for all five outlets are shown on

the enclosed graph. The zero strain point on each of these curves is

strickly arbitrary. On most of the outlets it requires about three

inch-pounds of torque before a linear stress-strain region is reached.

As tested with steel washers the outlets showed considerable range in

compliance. For example, the ”A" heavy duty indicated only about

0.6 mils compliance between 5 and 10 in- lb torque, whereas the regular

"A" outlet had over 1.5 mils.

*The letters "A" to "D" refer to four different manufacturers

23
2

Measurements on the "C" unit indicated that the compliance with an actual loop of wire may be considerable higher than that with a washer. With the 360° washer the compliance between 5 and 10 in-lb

torque was only 1.2 mils. With the wire loop, which contacted about

270° , the compliance was about 2.2 mils.

On the other hand, CO/ALR units should not have appreciable more compliance than older outlets with the same plate design. Measurements

were repeated on the stiffest unit - "A" heavy duty - with brass in

place of the steel screw with nearly identical results.

The screw-plate compliance, as measured between 5 in-lb and 10 in-lb,

for the various outlets tested are as follows:

"A" , heavy duty

"A", heavy duty with CO/ALR screw

"B" , back wired

"C”, CO/ALR

"A" , regular

"C" , CO/ALR, with brass loop

"D" , with brass loop

0.6 mils

0.6 mils

0.95 mils

1.2 mils

1.55 mils

2.2 mils

1.6 mils

Compliance measurements were also attempted by means of measuring the

pull force required to withdraw a thin tapered wedge from under the

tightened screw head. For this thin hardened steel wedges were made

with' a taper of one mil per inch. Pull force as a function of motion

was measured on the Instron tester. Again, beveled steel washers were

used on each side of the wedge to simulate thickness and shape of

No. 12 wire.

Unfortunately, the friction and therefore the pull force was rather

unstable for about the first inch of motion. Results of two such tests

with the "C"-C0/ALR outlet are shown on the accompanying chart. From

the slope of the most linear portion of these curves the compliance

can be estimated to be 0.24 mils per inch-pound differential which

agrees with the previous experiment.

At tachments

24
.0

NSS-1 14A IRE V 7-73)

U.S. DEPT. OF COMM. BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET

1. PUBLICATION OR REPORT NO. NBSIR 78-1507

2. Gov’t Accession

No.

3. Recipient’s Accession No.

A. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Some Thoughts on Electrical Connections

5. Publication Date

6. Performing Organization Code

7. AUTHOR(S) Jacob Rabinow 8. Performing Organ. Report No. NBSIR

9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20234

10. Project /Task/Work Unit No.

11. Contract/Grant No.

12. Sponsoring Organization Name and Complete Address (Street, City, Stare, ZIP)

N/A

13. Type of Report & Period Covered

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

16. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less factual summary ol most si gp ificant information. If document includes a significant

bibliography or literature survey, mention it here.) This report is a subjective and personal statement of my experiences and

thoughts regarding electrical connections, in general, and aluminum wiring for

homes, in particular. It is not a statement of official position of the

National Bureau of Standards (NBS). It is entirely possible that other members

of the NBS staff may not agree with many statements made in this report. It

is based on some considerable experience and where the ideas expressed are not

based on such experience, I hope this is clearly indicated.

My conclusions are that present day technology of electrical distribution

wiring in residences is not in keeping with good engineering practices

available today. This is true relative to both copper and aluminum wiring.

17. KEY WORDS (six to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only the first letter of the first key word unless a proper name; separated by semicolons

)

, Aluminum wiring; Electrical connections; Pressure terminals; Wire creep

18. AVAILABILITY Unlimited

1 For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

Order From Sup. of Doc., U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402, SD Cat. No. CH

[ Order From Nat ional Technical Information Service (NTIS)

Springfield, Virginia 2 2 1 S 1

19. SECURITY CLASS

(THIS REPORT)

UNCLASSIFIED

20. SECURITY CLASS

(THIS PAGE)

UNCLASSIFIED

21. NO. OF PAGES

33

22. Price

$4.50

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