Duct bank

[anbm]

When do we need to install conduits inside duct bank? Is it depending on conduits quantity?

Can we just bury conduits underground without install them inside the ductbank and save cost? What is the advantages of duct bank?

 

[charlie b]

The biggest advantage I can see is structural strength. Many ductbanks that I have designed will have trucks driving over them. You would have to put a conduit very deep, before it could survive that much weight without the support of a concrete encasement.

 

[weressl]

The biggest advantage I can see is structural strength. Many ductbanks that I have designed will have trucks driving over them. You would have to put a conduit very deep, before it could survive that much weight without the support of a concrete encasement.

In addition there are areas where the earth itself is subject to shifting and movement due to varying water table and can result in the shearing of the counduits and conductors within.

One of my first jobs in the US was the rewiring of an ENTIRE factory site. It was a Colt/Rockwell foundry, ironworks where they been moving molten containers of steel from one building to another on railbed. Even though the conduits were in concrete ductbanks, they have failed as the bucktbank were installed without reinforcement and eventually cracked.