National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN IEC 60228:2024. It is identical to IEC 60228:2023. It supersedes BS EN 60228:2005, which is withdrawn.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee GEL/20/16, Electric Cables - Medium/high voltage.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 30 November 2024.

FOREWORD

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications, Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as “IEC Publication(s)”). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by agreement between the two organizations.
The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all interested IEC National Committees.
IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National Committees in that sense. While all reasonable efforts are made to ensure that the technical content of IEC Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any misinterpretation by any end user.
In order to promote international uniformity, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC Publications transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional publications. Any divergence between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in the latter.
IEC itself does not provide any attestation of conformity. Independent certification bodies provide conformity assessment services and, in some areas, access to IEC marks of conformity. IEC is not responsible for any services carried out by independent certification bodies.
All users should ensure that they have the latest edition of this publication.
No liability shall attach to IEC or its directors, employees, servants or agents including individual experts and members of its technical committees and IEC National Committees for any personal injury, property damage or other damage of any nature whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, or for costs (including legal fees) and expenses arising out of the publication, use of, or reliance upon, this IEC Publication or any other IEC Publications.
Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
IEC draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a) patent(s). IEC takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, IEC had not received notice of (a) patent(s), which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at https://patents.iec.ch. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

IEC 60228 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 20: Electric cables. It is an International Standard.

This fourth edition cancels and replaces the third edition published in 2004. This edition constitutes a technical revision.

This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:

a description of Milliken conductors has been added;
nominal cross-sectional areas above 2 500 mm² have been added;
the old 2 500 mm² aluminium resistance value has been corrected and a new value introduced.
For legacy systems where the 2 500 mm² aluminium conductor was designed taking into account the value presented in previous editions and no longer tabulated, then the original design can be maintained and still utilized.
The suppliers can furthermore utilize such superseded design of 2 500 mm² aluminium conductors either in systems already designed and qualified but not delivered or for example to produce repair and additional spare lengths for delivered systems.
The choice of utilizing the original superseded design of 2 500 mm² aluminium conductors or a new one based on the new resistance tabulated value is a matter of agreement between the supplier and final users.

The text of this International Standard is based on the following documents:

Full information on the voting for its approval can be found in the report on voting indicated in the above table.

The language used for the development of this International Standard is English.

This document was drafted in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, and developed in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1 and ISO/IEC Directives, IEC Supplement, available at www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs. The main document types developed by IEC are described in greater detail at www.iec.ch/publications.

The committee has decided that the contents of this document will remain unchanged until the stability date indicated on the IEC website under webstore.iec.ch in the data related to the specific document. At this date, the document will be

reconfirmed,
withdrawn, or
revised.

INTRODUCTION

This document is intended as a fundamental reference standard for IEC technical committees and National Committees in drafting standards for electric cables, and to the National Committees in drafting specifications for use in their own countries. These committees select from the tables of this general standard the conductors appropriate to the particular applications relevant to them and either include the applicable details in their cable specifications or make appropriate references to this document.

This European Standard was approved by CENELEC on 12 June 2024. CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.

Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CENELEC member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CENELEC members are the national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

The text of document 20/2125/FDIS, future edition 4 of IEC 60228, prepared by IEC/TC 20 "Electric cables" was submitted to the IEC-CENELEC parallel vote and approved by CENELEC as EN IEC 60228:2024.

The following dates are fixed:

This document supersedes EN 60228:2005 and all of its amendments and corrigenda (if any).

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CENELEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national committee. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CENELEC website.

Endorsement notice

The text of the International Standard IEC 60228:2023 was approved by CENELEC as a European Standard without any modification.

1 Scope

This document specifies the nominal cross-sectional areas, in the range 0,5 mm² to 3 500 mm², for conductors in electric power cables and cords of a wide range of types. Requirements for numbers and sizes of wires and resistance values are also included. These conductors include solid, stranded and Milliken, copper, aluminium and aluminium alloy conductors in cables for fixed installations and flexible copper conductors.

This document does not apply to conductors for telecommunication purposes.

The applicability of this document to a particular type of cable is as specified in the standard for the type of cable.

Unless specified otherwise in a particular clause, this document relates to the conductors in the finished cable and not to the conductor as made or supplied for inclusion into a cable.

Conductors described in this document are specified in metric sizes.

Informative annexes provide supplementary information covering temperature correction factors for resistance measurement (Annex B) and guidance on dimensional limits of circular conductors (Annex C).

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Classification

5 Materials

5.1 General

5.2 Circular and shaped solid aluminium conductors

5.3 Circular and shaped stranded aluminium conductors

6 Solid conductors and stranded conductors

6.1 Solid conductors (class 1)

6.2 Stranded circular non-compacted conductors (class 2)

6.3 Stranded compacted circular conductors and stranded shaped conductors (class 2)

6.4 Milliken conductors (class 2)

7 Flexible conductors (classes 5 and 6)

7.1 Construction

7.2 Resistance

8 Check of compliance with Clause 6 and Clause 7

Bibliography

BS EN IEC 60228:2024

Conductors of insulated cables

Current

Published:

30 Nov 2024