medium voltage switchgear

[karlwayne]

Hello to all, hope to meet many, and some with new and interesting posts/responses.

One of our customers has recently updated some medium voltage switchgear, and a slight problem/difference of opinion has evolved with which I have no reliable solution. Perhaps some with varying experience might shed some light into darker corners.

The following is typical for four units
1. 4160 parallel #500 line side feeders from POCO
2. parallel # 500 load side
3. gear is 8' high, top 4' section is seperated from the bottem 4' section via a shelf.
4. Top section is the termination point for the line side conductors
5. Bottom section is the termination point for the load side connections
6. The layout 'cutsheets' showed the conduit rough in section as a 23" deep by 32" wide rectangular opening at the back of the gear.
7. All four conduits are underground and emerge in the same load side section.
8. The Line side conduits were roughed in towards the center of the gear, and the load side conduits were roughed in towards the outer edge of the gear.
9. Now for the problem. The manufactures' gear arrives on site with a 6" by 6" wireway 48" long, that is supposed to seperate the line and load conductors, extending down from the shelf, to the floor.
10. Our crew proceded to take the wireways out, and install the cables.
11. The customer understands that it is not possible to get both 5" conduits into the end of a 6" by 6", but expects us to come up with a comparable solution.
12. Also, the line conduits are located directly beneath the load side terminations, and the load side conduits are located directly beneath the 6" by 6" opening in the shelf.
13. Any possible solutions, responses are welcomed.

Thank You in advance
Karl

 

[petersonra]

This sounds like a problem for the engineer that designed this thing to figure out.

 

[karlwayne]

That was my thought also, but the money doesn't seem to flow in that direction.

 

[eric9822]

I agree with Peter (or is it Bob?), sounds like the engineers problem. IMO the biggest problem is that the load side conduits are directly under the penetration for the line side wireway. If that weren't the case I'd say fab a bigger wireway and move on. Might help if you post some pictures.

 

[Jraef]

Changing anything on the inside of the gear will likely violate the UL listing of it, I don't think that is a viable option.

Assuming the conduits are embedded in concrete (and someone didn't think to look at the drawings before deciding where to put them), the only solution I can think of is to get a "Pull Section" from the Swgr mfr. and move the Swgr over so that all of the conduits come into the pull section, then you can rout them anywhere else they need to go. That's what should have been done from the get-go if you were coming in with 2 x 5" conduits.

 

[templdl]

Just with only a sketchy verbal description it is difficult to provide a suggestion as to how to approach this issue.
Should you provide a foot print of the gear and a plan view of the site I'm sure we could provide some relevant suggestions.