36 AWG is 0.005 inches in diameter, and No. 0000 is 0.46 inches in diameter.

Because there are also small gaps between the strands, a stranded wire will always have a slightly larger overall diameter than a solid wire with the same AWG.ĪWG is also commonly used to specify body piercing jewelry sizes (especially smaller sizes), even when the material is not metallic. The AWG of a stranded wire is determined by the cross-sectional area of the equivalent solid conductor. The AWG tables are for a single, solid and round conductor. Manufacturers of wire formerly had proprietary wire gauge systems the development of standardized wire gauges rationalized selection of wire for a particular purpose. Very fine wire (for example, 30 gauge) required more passes through the drawing dies than 0 gauge wire did. This gauge system originated in the number of drawing operations used to produce a given gauge of wire. Increasing gauge numbers denote decreasing wire diameters, which is similar to many other non-metric gauging systems such as British Standard Wire Gauge (SWG), but unlike IEC 60228, the metric wire-size standard used in most parts of the world. The cross-sectional area of each gauge is an important factor for determining its current-carrying ampacity. Dimensions of the wires are given in ASTM standard B 258. For other uses, see AWG (disambiguation).Īmerican Wire Gauge ( AWG), also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a logarithmic stepped standardized wire gauge system used since 1857, predominantly in North America, for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, electrically conducting wire.

Actual size printable wire gauge chart