The term electrical conductor is used to designate a product designed to carry electrical current (energy), with electrical wires and cables being the most common types of conductors. Copper is the most used metal in the manufacture of electrical conductors for residential, commercial and industrial installations. A wire is a solid, solid conductor, provided with insulation, used directly as an electrical energy conductor. In turn, the word cable is used when a set of wires is brought together to form an electrical conductor. Depending on the number of wires that make up a cable and the diameter of each one, a conductor has different degrees of flexibility. The Brazilian standard NBR NM280 defines some classes of flexibility for electrical conductors, namely:
Class 1: those are solid conductors (wires), which have a low degree of flexibility during handling.
Classes 2, 4, 5 and 6: are those conductors formed by several wires (cables), and the higher the class, the greater the flexibility of the cable during handling.
