Important Performance Differences Between Copper-Clad Aluminum and Aluminum

I am an early adoptor of technological advancements. There have been downsides to this propensity because of ill conceived "improvements" (think CFL lighting). As an electrician in the 70's, I installed many aluminum branch circuits with 10 and 12awg aluminum conductors. As an electrician in the 90's, 00's, 10's...and continuing to today, I deal with the flawed technology that was adopted when copper became too expensive and aluminum was foisted on the industry without adequate testing.

That said, the white paper is compelling. It was proposed that the main objections to CCA were skin effect (please, I've spent too much time in high frequency to lend credibility to that theory(i.e. waveguide). Current acts more like DC at 60hz than it does at gigahertz). The other is a metallurgical question which I am profoundly inadequate to challenge.

In my experience neither of the aforementioned issues are of primary consequence. My greatest objection to AL conductors, clad or unclad, as it were, is mechanical strength. The white paper addresses the oxidation issue which caused a resistive connection at the termination point, with its inherent heat, but didn't address the less malleable properties of AL vs CU. AL will suffer reconnection less reliability than copper and, over time, the relatively brittle nature of aluminum(when compared to copper) is the crux of the issue.

In my experience failure of small wire gauge AL has been largely mechanical, not electrical.

Broken wires at termination points have been the overwhelming cause of failure.

Has this propensity been evaluated?