I am looking for a curve for copper conductivity vs. temperature over the -55°C to +180°C range (covers std. ranges of semiconductors plus NEMA class H insulation in the case of magnetics / motors) but cannot seem to find anything searching on the internet.
I have heard that it depends on the particular copper alloy as well, I'm just looking for "normal" copper found in electrical wire.
Does anyone have a reference that would include this information?
edit: I'm not looking for a linear approximation (the Wikipedia page on conductivity lists copper conductivity and its temperature coefficient at 20°C) but rather a curve.
Best Answer
Data from NIST (table 2)
At low temperatures the resistivity of copper approaches a "residual" resistivity. However, this isn't really a concern until below
~100K.At higher temperatures the resistivity is best approximated with a linear increase vs. temperature (as you've already found). I plotted the resitivity vs. temperature, and I wouldn't be too worried about non-linearity too much until
~800K.