Specialist Wire & Cable – Design and Manufacture

Habia Cable is a leading International manufacturer of special wire & cable, active in many national naval programmes such as the Type 45 destroyer and Astute submarine for the UK Royal Navy, the Visby stealth corvette for the Swedish Royal Navy and the FREMM frigates for the French Navy. Habia also supply hybrid custom designed cables to many naval applications including combat systems management, weapon, radar, sonar, communications and degaussing systems.

Design Skills

Our expertise lies in the ability to study and understand thoroughly what our customers require from their interconnection cables. Our initial ‘field’ assessment is fed directly into Habia’s design facility, where, using CAD our designers are able to balance particular requirements of size, weight, technical specifications and environmental demands to produce a solution which is technically complex without compromise. Fire Performance, small size and weight, electrical parameters, fluid & oil resistance, flexibility, abrasion resistance, strength, and screening effectiveness are typical factors which are carefully considered when designing cables for naval systems.

Material Benefits

Light Weight and Small Size

With the increasing complexity of modern warships, the necessity to reduce top weight and improve overall performance becomes a major design issue. As most if not all major systems on a warship are electronically/computer controlled, the weight and volume of interconnection cables and associated equipment such as cable trays, bulkhead glands and connectors becomes a significant part of the problem.

SeaGuard is able to offer substantial savings in both weight and size. Comparisons have been made against various standard marine cables (e.g. DIN & VG) and US Mil Spec naval cables, and it has been proven that Habia can, by using thin wall materials, reduce both weight and size by up to 50% depending on the cable design and construction.

Limited Fire Hazard

As a material specialist, Habia has developed thin-wall insulation and zero halogen sheathing materials which not only meet the tough environmental and physical requirements of naval systems such as extremes of temperature, toughness and oil resistance, but also comply with the strictest specifications on fire performance. Naval specifications have developed over the past 25 years to reduce the fire hazard associated with cable materials.

Fire is a complicated phenomenon and in order to assess the risk, two sets of factors are taken into account: fire performance and combustion products. Fire performance considers ease of ignition and flame propagation, and combustion products are those released when the material burns viz. smoke and fumes (toxic & corrosive). A number of different test methods have evolved to measure these factors and as a result national naval specifications can vary considerably in their requirements. Habia Cable have developed a number of Limited Fire Hazard insulation and jacketing materials to meet this wide range of international fire tests and as such SeaGuard is approved by many Naval Authorities around the world.

Products

HFI 140 Equipment Wire

A 600V thin wall insulated wire available in a wide range of colours and sizes up to 10mm2. This product can be released to the UK Defence Standard 61-12 Part 18 Issue 5. It is also available in multicore, multi-pair and screened options.

HFS 107XL Sheathing

This radiation cross-linked sheathing material has been designed to meet the demanding requirements of the UK Defence Standard 61 12 Part 31.

Power, Control & Instrumentation Cables

Habia are able to manufacture a wide range of ships cables using thin wall limited fire hazard materials to meet the requirements of most major naval specifications including the UK Defence Standard 61-12 Part 25. Cable design options include multicore, multipair, multitriples, with individual screens, overall screens (or both) and power cables.

Coaxial Cables

Using halogen free materials Habia have two ranges of coaxial cables suitable for installation on naval vessels.

Speedflex Coaxial Cables

An alternative to the Fluropolymer RG range.

UK Defence Standard Approved Coaxial Cable

Coaxial cables in this range fully comply with the Limited Fire Hazard (LFH) types outlined in the UK Defence Standard 61-12 Part 9.

Defence approvals

At Habia Cable, total quality is an attitude of mind as much as an insistence on strict compliance with world standards and QA programmes. We ensure that all of the materials coming into our facilities meet the most demanding standards and that quality control is carried right through manufacture and testing to final delivery. We carry out dual on line and off line quality inspection procedures which aim for zero defects.

In addition, our products and manufacturing procedures carry the most demanding accreditation including ISO 9001/2000 and ISO 14001/2004. We also hold recognized certification in leading civil and defence applications including DEF STAN, NF, UL, CSA, VDE, SEMKO, NEMKO, DEMKO, and DNV.