Wire sizes

Page 1 of 2

Wire sizes
Background
Imagine you were an 19th century engineer and were given the
task to sort up among the different sizes wires your employer
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
of sizes. Worse, 2 is 100% larger than 1, but 9 is only 12,5%
larger than 8. Here the mathematicians come to the rescue: Use
a geometric series. In a geometric series, the sizes increases with
a fixed increment. The simplest geometric series is 1, 2, 4, 8, 16,
32, 64...

Back | Main page

AWG <=> Metric
AWG
mm
Metric
0.50
# 20

0.519

# 18

0.823

# 16

1.310

# 14

2.080

# 12

3.310

# 10

5.261

American Wire Gauge

#8

8.367

The diameter of corresponding to an AWG size is calculated by

this expression:

#6

13.30

D = (92 ^ ((36-AWG)/39))*0.005 inch

#4

21.15

#3

26.67

#2

33.62

#1

42.41

#0

53.49

# 2/0

67.43

Although neat and simple, this series is a little bit too coarse for
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
is known as Brown and Sharp gauge, now called American Wire
Gauge or AWG for short, the latter is a Reynard series in sq.mm.

The higher the number, the smaller the size. Each size is about
25% larger than the previous. This mean moving three sizes
doubles the cross sectional area and moving ten sizes, e.g. from
20 to 10 AWG, increases the area about tenfold. Only every other
sizes is used in reality. The increase in area between these is
about 60%: I.e. 18 AWG is about 60% larger than 20 AWG.
Size 0 is often written as 1/0 and the size -1 is written as 2/0,
pronounced two-aught. The scale ends with 4/0 AWG

Circular Mils
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
usable for wire sizes. Therefore, sizes are usually given in
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%)

0.75
1.0
1.5
2.5
4.0
6.0
10
16
25

35
50

70
# 3/0

85.01
95

# 4/0

107.2
120

kcmil <=> Metric

kcmil
mm
Metric

Kcmil sizes are used instead of AWG for sizes larger than 4/0
AWG. The smallest standard size is 250 kcmil, the largest 2000
kcmil. The sizes follow no obvious logic.

250
300

152

Metric Wire Sizes

350

177

The French military engineer Charles Reynard came up with a

neater formula than Brown: 10^(n/10) where n=1, 2, 3 and so
on. Just like the AWG, each sizes is 25% large than the previous.
The neat part is that moving ten steps increases the area
excactly tenfold. Normally, only every other size is used. This
means you can write the formula as 10^(n/5). The resulting
numbers are then:

400

203

500

253

600

304

700

355

750

380

800

405

900

456

10^(0/5)
10^(1/5)
10^(2/5)
10^(3/5)
10^(4/5)
10^(5/5)

=
=
=
=
=
=

1
1.5848
2.5119
3.9811
6.3096
10

In practice these numbers are always rounded. However, for

http://www.global-electron.com/wiresizes.htm

127
150

185
240
300

400

500
1000

507
630

26-Oct-10

Wire sizes

Page 2 of 2
some reason only the sizes from 1.0 mm2 to 25 mm2 follow this
logic. Standard sizes up to 1000 mm2 are used, but sizes 35-95
mm2 follow a different series. (See the table below) The metric
wire sizes in the electrical industry are always in mm2, never in
mm dia. The size of other types of wire, e.g. fence wire, is often
given in mm dia.

Japanese sizes

1250

633

1500

760
800

1750

887
1000

2000

1013

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

based on the American Wire Gauge, but the sizes are in sq. mm,
rounded and with fewer steps.

Japanese sizes
mm
mm
0.75

100

Comment

1.25

150

2.0

200

3.5

250

5.5

325

8.0

400

14

500

22

600

38

800

60

1000

The ampacity of wires depend on a number of factors and

converting between metric and AWG sizes is a bit more involved
than it seems. Ampacities for wire sizes from 18 AWG - 1000
kcmil and 1.0 - 500 mm can be found here

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

http://www.global-electron.com/wiresizes.htm

26-Oct-10