Wire sizes Page 1 of 2

Wire sizes Back | Main page

Background AWG <=> Metric

AWG mm² Metric
Imagine you were an 19th century engineer and were given the 0.50
task to sort up among the different sizes wires your employer
# 20 0.519
used. The simplest way would be to use an aritmetic scale: 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and so on. This would give you an awful lot 0.75
of sizes. Worse, 2 is 100% larger than 1, but 9 is only 12,5% # 18 0.823
larger than 8. Here the mathematicians come to the rescue: Use 1.0
a geometric series. In a geometric series, the sizes increases with
a fixed increment. The simplest geometric series is 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, # 16 1.310
32, 64... 1.5
# 14 2.080
Although neat and simple, this series is a little bit too coarse for
2.5
wire size. Two different series were developed, one in the United
States in the 1850's and one in France in the 1870's. The former # 12 3.310
is known as Brown and Sharp gauge, now called American Wire 4.0
Gauge or AWG for short, the latter is a Reynard series in sq.mm. # 10 5.261
6.0
American Wire Gauge #8 8.367
10
The diameter of corresponding to an AWG size is calculated by
this expression: #6 13.30
16
D = (92 ^ ((36-AWG)/39))*0.005 inch #4 21.15
25
The higher the number, the smaller the size. Each size is about
25% larger than the previous. This mean moving three sizes #3 26.67
doubles the cross sectional area and moving ten sizes, e.g. from #2 33.62
20 to 10 AWG, increases the area about tenfold. Only every other 35
sizes is used in reality. The increase in area between these is
#1 42.41
about 60%: I.e. 18 AWG is about 60% larger than 20 AWG.
50
Size 0 is often written as 1/0 and the size -1 is written as 2/0, #0 53.49
pronounced two-aught. The scale ends with 4/0 AWG # 2/0 67.43
70
Circular Mils # 3/0 85.01
95
A circular mil is the area of a circle with the diameter of 1/1000".
In practice this number is about a thousand times to small to be # 4/0 107.2
usable for wire sizes. Therefore, sizes are usually given in 120
thousands of circular mils, denoted kcmil or previously MCM. One
kcmil 0.5067 mm2, which means that for practical purposes the 1
mm2 = 2 kcmil can be used as approximation. (The error is only
1.3%) kcmil <=> Metric
kcmil mm² Metric
Kcmil sizes are used instead of AWG for sizes larger than 4/0 250 127
AWG. The smallest standard size is 250 kcmil, the largest 2000 150
kcmil. The sizes follow no obvious logic.
300 152
350 177
Metric Wire Sizes
185
The French military engineer Charles Reynard came up with a 400 203
neater formula than Brown: 10^(n/10) where n=1, 2, 3 and so 240
on. Just like the AWG, each sizes is 25% large than the previous. 500 253
The neat part is that moving ten steps increases the area
300
excactly tenfold. Normally, only every other size is used. This
means you can write the formula as 10^(n/5). The resulting 600 304
numbers are then: 700 355
750 380
10^(0/5) = 1
10^(1/5) = 1.5848 400
10^(2/5) = 2.5119 800 405
10^(3/5) = 3.9811 900 456
10^(4/5) = 6.3096
500
10^(5/5) = 10
1000 507
In practice these numbers are always rounded. However, for 630

http://www.global-electron.com/wiresizes.htm 26-Oct-10
Wire sizes Page 2 of 2
some reason only the sizes from 1.0 mm2 to 25 mm2 follow this
1250 633
logic. Standard sizes up to 1000 mm2 are used, but sizes 35-95
mm2 follow a different series. (See the table below) The metric 1500 760
wire sizes in the electrical industry are always in mm2, never in 800
mm dia. The size of other types of wire, e.g. fence wire, is often 1750 887
given in mm dia.
1000
2000 1013
Japanese sizes

Japan and Korea use a separate system. It appears to have been

Japanese sizes
based on the American Wire Gauge, but the sizes are in sq. mm,
rounded and with fewer steps. mm² mm²
0.75 100
Comment 1.25 150
2.0 200
The ampacity of wires depend on a number of factors and 3.5 250
converting between metric and AWG sizes is a bit more involved 5.5 325
than it seems. Ampacities for wire sizes from 18 AWG - 1000
8.0 400
kcmil and 1.0 - 500 mm² can be found here
14 500
22 600
38 800
60 1000

© Global-Electron.com | Updated 22 August 2004 | Disclaimer

http://www.global-electron.com/wiresizes.htm 26-Oct-10