The main purpose of electrical design is to make sure that all electrical equipment, instrumentation, motorized piping and raceway ducting components, and safety or security devices (fire protection, CCTV cameras, alarms, controlled access, etc.) have all the wiring or cabling required to deliver power and provide required control signal or data.
Cables connect originating and terminating devices (equipment, instruments, and piping components) and are routed through the available raceway network with compatible signal type.
Raceways for cable routing are above ground (such as, cableways, cable trays, or conduits) or underground trenches with cableways or conduits encased in concrete (duct banks) where cables are protected under roads or slabs.
Cables can be routed only through continuously connected and compatible raceway network. Auto-connect can be used for bridging and connecting separated compatible segments of network to achieve desired connectivity.
A cableway represents a reserved path for cables. The cableway has no physical counterpart;
it simply reserves space. Cable tray, on the other hand, does have a physical counterpart.
For models that include underground placement of electrical cables, the software provides a duct bank option which allows you to design the conduit arrangement and the overall dimensions of the encasement that will provide mechanical protection. The duct bank object allows you to pick the conduit size and specification to be used for the entire arrangement or individualize each conduit run, if needed.
Electrical Systems
Electrical systems are a way of organizing electrical objects such as different types of raceways and cables, within the system hierarchy of your model. You also use the electrical system to control the specifications that can be used within the system, such as conduit, cableway, and cable tray specifications.
You can create and organize electrical systems using any criteria you choose. For example, you could base an electrical system on the area where the objects are located; you could also base an electrical system on design responsibility to separate power, instrumentation, and data.
You create electrical systems in the system hierarchy by right clicking the objects on the System tab in Hierarchy Explorer. Electrical systems can later be reorganized in the system hierarchy based on your access privileges to the permission groups.
Electrical and conduit systems can restrict the cableway or conduit specifications used under system and set default values for new objects (signal type, fill efficiency, specification) created in the system.