SWx Elec Control Points is the primary dataset within SaaS Electrical, where engineering and design work is accomplished. It stores all electrical assets that require power, signal, or communication wiring, and its Data Worksheets provide columns for conduit and tray pathway information entry and reporting.
This article presents procedures and methods that can be adopted or adapted for any electrical system design. It concludes with the SWx Elec Conduit and Tray Report, the target deliverable from the detailed procedure and methods.
Procedure and Method Prerequisites:
- Data Workbooks are the foundation of SaaS Electrical:
- SWx Elec Enclosures. Termination enclosures that have wire exiting or entering.
- SWx Elec Control Points. All wired electrical assets and their wiring information
- SWx Elec Wiring Catalog. Wires and cables to be used
- Naming, or identification, schemas for the physical routes between termination enclosures, conductor pathways, and the conductors joining them require ID Tags.
- Termination Enclosures
- Conduit and Tray Pathways
- Cable and Wire Routes
The three SWx Elec tables can all be deployed, but this article simplifies deployment by describing how only the Control Point Data Worksheet can yield project conduit and tray schedules.
Engineering and Design Methods
As one can expect, the data structure is hinged to naming conventions. SaaS Electrical methods start from the origin of power, signal, or communications and end at connected electromechanical devices.
Industrial systems are comprised of electrical and mechanical equipment. Electrical, Instrumentation, and Controls (EI&C) systems are governed by their physical proximity between them and permissible routes for interconnection. Figure 1 is an Equipment top view or area plan. It is being used solely to describe and set electrical equipment naming conventions.
SaaS Electrical does not produce 3D models or 2D layouts, as shown in Figure 1. Generally, engineers are leveraging mechanical and electrical equipment and site plans from AutoCAD toolsets or plugins, like AutoCAD PLANT 3D and ELECTROWorx. SaaS Electrical provides a website to accumulate wiring information that produces reports like conduit and tray schedules.
Figure 1 - Example industrial equipment, cable tray, and conduit pathways
Junction Point Identification
SaaS Electrical supports up to four termination points per control point with default settings, covering those edge cases. They are designated as Junction Boxes and abbreviated as JBox#.
Important. In many cases, enclosures will function as JBox0 and JBox1, where wiring originates and terminates within them.
The Junction Point Identification method requires that users enter JBox0, JBox1, JBox2, JBox3, and Device values for every control point wiring pathway. The values entered will equal the electrical equipment ID Tag values.
[JBox0] - equipment where power, signal, or communication wiring starts points.
[JBox1] - equipment where the wiring from JBox0 enters, terminates, and continues to the next junction point.
[JBox#] - equipment where the wiring from JBox(#-1) terminates and continues to the next junction point.
[Device] - The wiring termination enclosure or endpoints.
Pathway Identification
The following procedural step establishes pathways for wiring between junction points. In this use case, pathways are constructed from rigid metallic conduits and cable trays. Like the wiring within them, they need start points, endpoints, and ID Tags. Because pathways are almost always independent of wiring within them except for weight and percent fill, their identification shall be based upon one of the enclosures they service, and it must exist under the SWx Elec Control Points [JBox0] Data Worksheet column.
Important. Control points often require more than one pathway between junction points, and the order in which they are entered is essential.
SaaS Electrical includes columns for [Route1], 2, 3, and 4.
Users enter all the pathways between JBox0 and JBox1 under [Route1], between JBox1 and JBox2 under [Route2], and so on as needed until the Device junction point. Figure 3 illustrates numerous wiring pathways that can traverse the tray or conduit routes.
Figure 3 - Pathway identification for wiring routes
Pathway ID Tagging
Naming Conventions for conduit and tray routes must be followed.
As mentioned above, SaaS Electrical targets unique electrical equipment names and, precisely, their unique 4-digit identification numbers. For example, 'CP-1001', for Control Panel Number 1001, or 'B-100', for the Junction Box 1100 on OEM 'Skid-1100'.
Important. Procedurally, electrical equipment must be named before pathway naming is possible and contains a unique 4-digit numeric identifier. Alternatives are possible, but this is the default method.
Because every electrical equipment number is unique, that is the only substring SaaS Electrical uses.
As illustrated in Figure 4 in the lower left corner, Tray pathways 1001-01 and 1002-01 are connected to 'CP-1001' and 'CP-1002'. Since these are the first pathways named related to them, the suffix '-01' identifies them as such.
Another example is 'JB-1100' in the upper corner of Figure 4. Two conduit pathways are associated with it, named 1100-01 and 1100-02.
Engineers and Designers establish the need for multiple pathways to and from junction points, and often, the SaaS Electrical AI conduit and tray sizing will recommend them, too.
Figure 4 - Pathway naming convention examples
Cable ID Tagging and Specification
Naming Conventions for wiring route ID Tags must be followed. In addition, Cable or Wiring specifications must be set.
SaaS Electrical continues to target unique electrical equipment and device names. Precisely, their unique 4-digit identification numbers.
Important. The methods are set so that only partial values are required to satisfy the SWx Elec Conduit & Tray Report. This is beneficial because prepopulating the demand, albeit by estimation, provides a means to start sizing Conduit and Tray pathways.
One method is to set cable requirements for a dedicated cable when a multi-group cable will eventually be used.
This method will start the cable and tray sizing process because it will include the single pair, or triad, cable cross-sectional area, which generally is more significant than that contributed to a multi-group cable.
SaaS Electrical default Cable Identification tagging convention is as follows;
##-EqupmentTag/DeviceTag-?$ e.g. 01-JB1100-C1
Where,
##-
00 - Single Pair or Triad Cables
01 - Multiple Pair or Triad Cables
02 - Communications Cables
EquipmentTag/DeviceTag
Destination Equipment ID Tag Less hyphens or spaces. eg. JB-1100 = JB1100
?
C - Control Wiring
P - Power Wiring
$
1 - Cable 1 to the same Equipment/Device
2 - Cable 2 to the same Equipment/Device
$ - Cable $ to the same Equpquipment/Device
SaaS Electrical Assignments - JB Conduit and Tray Routing
With methods and naming conventions set, navigate to this assignment Data Worksheet to enter junction boxes and the pathways between them as Routes. There are Route Pathways, their Route PathTypes, cables, and cable spec columns to populate, and once values exist, the SWx Elec Conduit and Tray Report will be ready to export.
The Reprt mimices the Data Worksheet, expect it is formated to accumuate all wiring withing the Tray or Conduit pathways.
The accumalation of all conductor assigned to them enables calculation of areas to perform sizing according to built in rules when cables are pulled from the SWx Elec Wiring Catalog.
