ARACON^® Product Training Webinar

Summary

This webinar details the applications and special characteristics of the ARACON^® product line, a lightweight and flexible alternative to traditional copper overbraid for managing the challenges of congested airframes and payloads. The presentation highlights how ARACON products provide superior performance in demanding environments where weight, flexibility, and electromagnetic shielding are critical.

Watch the recording or read the session notes below.

Session Notes

Modern aircraft face significant challenges with increasingly congested airframes and payloads. These environments contain hundreds of wires and cable harnesses, operate in high vibration environments, and feature electromagnetic interference (EMI) sensitive components. Given the critical importance of weight reduction and the vulnerability of composite bodies to lightning strikes, the traditional solution of plated or tinned copper overbraid falls short in modern systems. While copper provides effective mechanical protection and EMI shielding, its bulk and rigidity limits flexibility and adds to overall system weight.

ARACON products are a family of electrically conductive yarns from Micro-Coax. It combines the conductivity of an outer metal coating, typically nickel or silver, with the exceptional light weight, strength, and flexibility of DuPont™ Kevlar® fibers. This unique composition allows ARACON to offer significant advantages over copper overbraids.

This innovative fiber is manufactured exclusively by Micro-Coax in Pottstown, PA. The process involves plating individual Kevlar fibers with a metallic coating to create a strong, durable, and conductive yarn. These yarns are then used in various product options, including the fiber itself, braided EMI shields, and ultra-lightweight microwave cables.

Applications and Features

ARACON fiber is a low-outgassing material with a broad operating temperature range and resistance to fluid immersion, making it ideal for a variety of demanding applications. It’s used in areas where cables are EMI/RF sensitive, susceptible to lightning strikes, or require high vibration and repeated flex endurance. The nickel finish is particularly suitable for corrosive environments or applications requiring soldering.

Top applications include:

• Space flight cables
• Aerospace qualified systems
• Commercial air
• Missile systems

For specific applications, Micro-Coax also offers blended solutions that combine ARACON with copper to improve transfer impedance.

Kevlar^® is a registered trademark of DuPont. DuPont^™ is a trademark of DuPont. 

ARACON^® is a registered trademark of Amphenol CIT.