Panama, April of 2018
Introduction: This document allows to describe the benefits of Autodesk Revit program in the elaboration of an Electric Substation either under new or existing design of any power and voltage level. The objective of the BIM for the construction of an Electric Substation is initially to have a roadmap defined from the beginning of the basic engineering for the tender or bidding process, anticipate the quantities necessary for the procurement of civil and electromechanical works. In addition to what has been described above, the BIM developed under Autodesk's Revit program is perfectly compliant, allowing to work collaboratively, easily, dynamically and an important point is that having the model allows transparency in any audit process from the beginning of the elaboration process from the same to the construction and delivery of the project, in a short time and simple computational resources. Facilitating an integrated design process that allows multiple disciplines to work in parallel, avoiding collisions and saving time and costs.
Benefits of the BIM for an Electric Sub-Station: The BIM is the present and future for any infrastructure work, in the case of electrical substations the BIM allows to develop an exact calculation of everything that involves the project, starting from the basic engineering, achieving in this way to have a route in all aspects defined before the call for the delivery of the economic offer for a bidding process. It allows to have a real and visible model for the request of economic-financial resources of the project, to know the execution time of the work based on the magnitude thereof, optimization of land use, for the purchase of the necessary land for the execution of the work, to be able to carry out the environmental impact studies with a real model, consult cost of materials and everything that involves the construction of the work. Another benefit of the BIM is that it can be used in existing electrical substations for future extensions, develop asset control, visualization of all the infrastructure and equipment in a dynamic model which will allow to develop an exact record of these. It works as a basis for the development of applications to obtain real-time access to model information, minimizing communication time between project stakeholders to comply with the project schedule. s chedule.
Basic Plans for Tender, Initial Offer. During the initial bidding process through public or private bidding, the development of a model prior to carrying out this act allows for a real estimate of the cost of materials and equipment, and the preparation of a real model for permitting, land purchase and presentation processes. of the project to obtain funding sources for it.
In addition to the BIM model, Revit allows to export the model to a 2D CAD file, for any manipulation of the model for any other use. You can also do the BIM in Revit Autodesk from the template in AutoCAD or 2D floor model and in this way develop a modern and friendly model that can be used for extensions of the existing Substation, cases of studies as reference elements, control of inventories, exportable model for application of Virtual and Augmented Reality, among others. As well as any 2D plant view, you can also have the vertical views of any cut and detail of any general and point of the project, saving time and total precision in the actual result of the product.
Calculation of Materials and Volumetry for Civil Works. An important point in the execution of a project of Electrical Substation that involves civil works is the calculation of the materials and volumes, as it is the case of concrete, aggregates, the calculation of the meters of any infrastructure, as well as finishes of floors and its particular characteristics. Likewise, with the development of the BIM through Revit Autodesk one can have the amount of structural steel and all those necessary calculations, obtained in a fast and safe way through the calculation report made by the program.
As well as the report of the foundations,
you
can
also
obtain the report of quantities of walls, floors, perimeter fence meters, bearing edge, number of cables, cable trays, cable channels, cable channel covers, equipment major and minor, lamps,
metal
connections, hardware
structures, mounting
steel,
insulators,
Calculation of Major Teams and Location. One of the advantages of the development of the BIM is the location of major and minor equipment allowing the location within the final design obtaining control of the amount of these, location and arrangement of the substation, as well as the calculation of the minimum distances to ground and separations of these inside the patio, available for your location. The necessary foundations and to estimate the calculation of cables and conductors to be used both b oth power and control. If you do not have a parameterized model of the equipment by the manufacturer, you can perfectly model it in the Revit program of Autodesk and give it a place within the
design, creating a parametric family of the same or a particular design that could be developed in Inventor Autodesk and import it. to the model. An important advantage in the use of the Revit tool for the preparation of the BIM is the placement of the equipment and its planning of
procurement
and
transfer, as well as the rational use of the available spaces for the construction of the work and allow the optimization of the land for future extensions.
Calculation of Insulators, Mounting Hardware Steel and Connection Connections. s. The BIM for the calculation of the chains of insulators is of great benefit since it allows to identify the minimum distances of leakage and arc taking into consideration that these chains when modeling allow to verify the definitive lengths and distances comparable with the calculation tables of tensioning of drivers Besides the advantages of knowing the amount of mounting hardware steel, connections and fittings within the development of the procurement and optimization of resources with the BIM tool is the exact calculation of what is necessary for the construction or evaluation in this type of works. On the other hand, it allows to see and know for people with very little knowledge of this type of works in a friendly way the details of all the components that constitute it.
You
can
create
parametric families of insulators
of
any
manufacturer, connections for cables and conductors of any material
and
dimensions
Length of Conductors and Cables. After the elaboration of the tensioning table of the conductors for the electrical substation, the length and height of the same can be traced, taking as a basis the tensioning table perfectly capturing the parabola inside the model, in addition to this it allows to have the real distances of the total number of drivers to be used, facilitating the search for savings in waste and any calculation errors that occur. The model allows to estimate the amount of cables needed by equipment, facilitating the search and visualization of the necessary spaces for the calculation of the benches and electric manhole. In the case of the grounding grid, it can be added to the model taking into account the route according to the particular calculation and verify if there is a collision or interference with the channels, ducts, benches, tracks, foundations and others.
The
BIM
allows
estimating the number of
conductors
and
collisions between these and other elements of the sub-station.
The BIM allows the tracing
of
cables
electrical the number of trays, channels and benches
or
necessary route
ducts
for of
the these
allowing
the
optimization of civil works.
Forecast of minimum distances of active part to ground. Another advantage of the BIM is to be able to make the views of the whole model simultaneously with the floor views, achieving the identification of all the additional piece to this as the model is completely symmetrical it is very easy to identify all the distances of each piece, structure , equipment, height of conductors and infinities of perfectly verifiable and measurable elements.
The BIM can also be used with the Navisworks program of Autodesk to verify any collision that exists and to review in a simpler way the whole project without any type of complications since the BIM is totally parametric.
Design of steel structures. The Revit program of Autodesk has among its versatilities the design of metallic structures of parametric type which allows to design collaboratively in the whole project. This option to design the structures and then place them within the model allows to verify and verify in a visual, fast and safe way the particular characteristics of the work. Not only gantry and beams can be analyzed within the model, but also the structural steels of foundations, walls, floor and ceiling tiles. Finally, the report of steel quantities to be used is obtained. Optimizing the response time at the time of project calculation and delivery. The
Structural
BIM
allows us to capture the smallest detail of structures screws,
such
as
anchors,
among others, such as the analysis of the mechanical stress of steel.
Model for Virtual Reality (RV). This simulation technique that allows to recreate a three-dimensional environment with a high degree of realism makes any person move to another reality. The creation of a prototype of each component of the substation and its construction is achieved, until the integration of all the parts. It is a modern, efficient and economical alternative to training and coaching. Operators and maintenance person interact from a computer as the substation will be physically. In addition, as it is a virtual platform, distance training is totally viable, as is the case with flight simulators, which makes it possible to understand the potential challenges to face and the best way to solve them. The virtual reality allows to recreate an electrical substation in its entirety, showing the routes of access and evacuation, the protection equipment and the alternatives to respond to contingencies. Virtual reality allows changes and improvements in the environment, avoiding falling into recurring costs, redesign and rework. In addition, the same virtual model can be applied in different scenarios.
Renders Navisworks
View Power Switch
View of Control Panel Control of Disconnectors Disconnectors
View Cable Output of Power Transformer
Command or control House
Author: Rosmer Ocando Morales Electrical Engineer / Specialist in Electrical Power Systems.
