Is thick wire stronger than thin wire?

Answer 1

The thickness of a wire is often referred to as its gauge, which is rated in reference to either cross-sectional area or diameter. In the United States, the American Wire Gauge (AWG) is commonly used. In this system, a larger AWG number corresponds to a thinner wire. The optimal gauge for "conducting electricity" depends on the specific application. If your goal is to simply pull as much current as possible, a thicker wire (small AWG number) is best as the current carrying capacity of a wire increases with its diameter while the resistivity decreases with an increase in cross-sectional area. This is often important in applications related to power transfer, particularly when high voltages are involved. On the other hand, low gauge wires present several drawbacks such as bulk, weight, and cost. Additionally, there are a number of applications where a thin wire is inherently preferable, such as in solenoid inductors (where turns per inch can be increased with a larger gauge) and wire heaters (where a larger gauge provides greater resistance and, thus, greater heat dissipation in the wire). That said, the gauge of your wire is not frequently an issue when dealing with electronics. Aside from very thick and very thin wires, common wire gauges can generally be treated the same and are typically abstracted as resistance-free connectors of circuit components.

Answer 2

Electricity moves on the surface of the wire - the wire with larger surface area will have less resistance, so one could say that it moves better.

Copper wire has less resistance the aluminum.

Answer 3

It is easier because the electrons have more room which makes them "flow" faster and in a thin wire it has less space which makes the electrons "cramped" and they wont move as fast.

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this is called resistance

for more info research ohms law, very interesting

also wire thickness's are important e.g. 15 amp circuit in a housing plug circuit will probably be 14 gauge compared to 20 amp in 12 gauge for your kitchens circuit.

wire lengths also affect this e.g. 20 amps over 20 metres may be a different gauge to 20 amps over 200 metres

Answer 4

Wire is generally stronger as its cross sectional area increases (gets thicker). However this is dependent on the material the wire is made from - as an example a thin steel wire could easily be stronger than a thick copper wire.

Answer 5

The worse copper wire to conduct electricity would be thin. Thick wire would be perfect for conducting electricity.

Answer 6

because the bigger the wire the bigger the space and the smaller the wire the smaller the space. its like a memery chip less the gb less space more gb more space.