21, rue d’Artois, F-75008 PARIS B3-101 CIGRE 2014

http : //www.cigre.org

Software for optimization and time reduction in substation design, using BIM
Technologies, advanced information systems and knowledge management.

J. CORREA*, J. GARCIA
HMV Ingenieros Ltda.
Colombia

SUMMARY

Within the electric substation chain of value and considering the present context, in which projects
have shorter execution time, the basic and detailed design has been identified as the part that has the
highest potential to be shortened. This situation has created a lot of pressure for the engineering firms,
which have to meet the recurrent requirements of scope changes, but not the due date, final cost or
quality.

Based on the knowledge and experience acquired during 50 years on consulting, management, and
design of High and Extra High voltage transmission systems, taking advantage of the information
systems advances and BIM technologies (Building Information Model), HMV Engineers has
developed two complementary tools for computer based design: HMVTools and DISAC.

HMV Tools is a platform that helps in calculations required for electromechanical, structural and civil
designs. DISAC is a program under AutoCAD platform that allows to develop 3-D models of
substations, including all main components like switchyard equipment, structures as columns and
beams, insulators, busbars, equipment connections, connectors, volume of buildings, etc. As well as
the underground part of the switchyard (foundations, grounding grid, drainages, cable trenches and
ducts). These models allow determining issues such as interferences, clearances violations, and also
generate the project bill of material.

Both programs store the information in a single model for the substation, the model is stored in a
private Internet cloud allowing that different work teams worldwide have access to the unique design
of the substation model (design criteria, data, calculations and 3-D model).

*jcorrea@h-mv.com
KEYWORDS

Air insulated substation, Design standardization, 3-D Model, BIM.

1. INTRODUCTION

The design requirements of electrical substations of High and Extra High voltage have radically
changed in recent years. The design time has gone from years to months, and the demand to keep
reducing it is increasing.

Figure1. Substation view by DISAC

This has created great pressure on the engineering firms, expected to efficiently address ongoing
requirements of changes in the scope requested by the various stakeholders of the project, without
affecting delivery times, costs of the work, and quality of the designs. In addition to the technical
challenges, other aspects play an important factor; for example the difficulties of finding land with the
appropriate conditions for the substation (dimension, soil conditions, topography, access, etc.), that
demand to the engineers to study different alternatives within the same deadlines assigned.

Likewise, during the process of basic and detailed design of a substation, it is generally necessary to
make modifications, which include from minor adjustments to major changes, due to factors external
to the design team (changes of the site, change of equipment, stakeholders change orders, adjustment
of incomings of power lines, etc.); or internal factors such as lack of, sufficient and experienced
qualified personnel, or high personnel rotation, failure of unified management of the information
(parameters and design criteria, specifications and requirements of customers, versioning of drawings
and documents, etc.).

During the past 10 years, HMV Ingenieros Ltda. has developed two complementary tools for computer
assisted design (HMVTools and DISAC) which allow optimizing time and risk reduction in the design
of High and Extra High voltage substations. These tools integrate an environment of applications
oriented to perform the electrical, mechanical, structural, and civil calculations (including the
calculation reports required to support the results), complemented with a CAD design platform that
allows generating the 3-D model of the substation associated with the results of the calculation reports
obtained during the design process.

These tools are supported by the knowledge and experience acquired during 50 years in the practice of
consulting, management, and design of electrical projects of High and Extra High voltage transmission
systems, and taking advantage of advances in information systems and technologies BIM (Building
Information Model).

2
 Figure 2. Interdisciplinary work model

2. HMV Tools

HMV Tools is a software developed under a WEB environment, allowing a design team that could
even be geographically distributed to work on the same master model, achieving benefits such as:

· Design procedure unification: standardized calculations based on international standards and

the compilation of good practices of engineering that HMV has developed.
· Avoid the calculations in personal work sheets, routines or formulas: This allows to reduce
errors due to engineering knowledge problems, inadequate use of formulation, “copy and
paste” problems, to work with outdated files, loss of work by accidental deletion of the file on
the user's computer.
· Information design unification: the design input parameters, as well as the output results, will
be available in only one place and not distributed on various computers, files or e-mails.
· Reduce design time: engineers are focused on the concept of engineering and analysis of
results, instead of reports and formulas to present to the client.
· Reprocesses time reduction: A change can be identified in time, so the adjustment to the
design will take less time.

HMV Tools creates an automatic workflow, with facilities that allow registration of the phases of
revision, versions, approvals, and quality control of designs; ensuring reliable results through the use
of controlled procedures and data.

HMVTools performs the following calculations, grouped by modules of disciplines:

Input general data: The Project Manager provides the design parameters for all the variables that
have impact on the design, such as elevation above sea level, short circuit levels, pollution level, local
temperature and wind conditions (average and maximums), keraunic level, seismic intensity, voltage
and current ratings, etc. This information is used by all designers and can only be complemented or
edited by the Project Director, ensuring a unique source of information.

3
 Figure 3. Integrated Process Model

Electromechanical module: This module includes the calculations required by the electrical
discipline such as:

· Surge arrester selection

· Insulation coordination (IEC 60071)
· Conductor verification (flexible or rigid) according to:
o Operating temperature (IEEE 738, CICRE 207)
o Short circuit current (IEEE 605)
o Corona effect (IEEE 605)
· Calculation of mechanical stress, tensions, and sag of strain bus (finite elements)
· Calculation of mechanical forces in rigid conductors and forces in insulators
· Calculation of short circuit forces in strain buses (IEC 60865)
· Shielding calculation of (IEEE Std 998)
· Estimation of soil resistivity (2 layers model, using genetic algorithms)
· Grounding system calculation (by method of images).

Figure 4. HVMTools, Electromechanical calculations Figure 5. HMVTols. Segurity configuration.

Structures module: this module enables structural engineers to calculate the loads transmitted to
foundation-level by structures and equipment, as well as any other loads required for the calculation of

4
foundations and anchoring bolts. These calculations are made interacting with other applications of the
same HMV Tools. The module consists basically of four subroutines:

· Calculation of loads on equipment (weight, wind, earthquake, short circuit).

· Calculation of loads on the supporting structure (weight, wind, and earthquake).
· Loads combination in accordance with the regulations of different countries and companies.
· Anchor bolt calculation.

Civil woks module: This module allows civil engineer to determine the dimensions of the foundations
(spread footing type), and estimate foundation steel reinforcement.

Figure 6. Short Circuit Analysis - IEC 60865 with HMVTools

3. DISAC

DISAC is a design tool for the physical layout of substations, using AutoCAD as drawing platform,
and it is applicable to High and Extra High voltage Air-Insulated Substations (AIS).

DISAC optimizes designs of substations with great quality and reduced times, through the use of the
graphic environment of AutoCAD. It generates isometric drawings, plants, sections and details in 3-D.

The engineer does not require advanced knowledge of AutoCAD to get the 3-D model of the
substation in 3-D, bill of materials, interferences and clearances check.

The program allows to model the switchyard including all main components such as dead-end
structures, equipment, insulators, conductors, interconnection cables, connectors, busbars, and
volumes of buildings. It also allows modeling the underground part of the switchyard such as the
foundations of gantries and equipment, cable trenches and ducts, and the grounding grid.

All these components are saved in the database of the design/drawing, allowing several people to work
on different modules. These modules are:

Electromechanical module: this module includes different external elements of the switchyard.

· Dead-end structures: these are configurable in the program, can be modeled as lattice or
solid structures.
· Equipment: DISAC has a library of equipment for each voltage level, it is user configurable
and is continuously being up-dated. The Equipment is modeled as detailed scaled blocks in
AutoCAD, with careful consideration of the dimension and shape.

5
 · Connections with flexible conductor: the library of flexible conductor has information of
different cables as type, size, diameter, weight, among others, which are important to properly
model the connection shape, checking clearances and calculate lengths of cables.
· Rigid connections: allows drawing connections with tubular conductors, including
information such as diameter and thickness of each type of conductor.
· Strain bus: allows drawing strain bus considering the cable properties, the insulator string,
and other loads as the tap-off connections to equipment and concentrated loads. It uses finite
differences calculation procedures to obtain the cable deformations.
.

Figure 7. DISAC - Structures, equipment, flexible and rigid conductors

Shielding module: this module includes the lighting protection elements as shielding masts and
shielding wires in order to model the lightning protection surfaces. These surfaces are calculated based
on the rolling sphere method and the calculation of protection radius, which are imported from the
HMVTools program and calculated with the shielding module based on IEEE-998. It is also possible
to calculate the protection radius based on recommendations of NFPA-780, IEC 62305 and NTC 4552
for buildings or other structures in switchyard.

Figure 8. Protect shielding lighting zone by DISAC

Grounding grid module: this module is made up of grounding cable routes, earthing rods and
connections. Grounding cables and earthing rods are imported from the HMVTools program, where
were previously calculated. DISAC allows adjusting the cable routes and earthing rods distribution, to
be exported back again to HMVTools for a new calculation. These adjustments are necessary to
prevent interferences with other modules as foundations module, trenches, or drainages. DISAC also
imports the touch voltage surfaces calculated in HMVTools by superimposing these on the switchyard
model, to validate the safety inside the substation and optimize the design of the grid.

6
 Figure 9. Grounding grid and touch voltage surfaces

Civil foundations module: this module includes foundations in 3-D for each structure or equipment
of the electro-mechanical module, each foundation is imported from the HMVTools program where
were previously calculated. This allows generating, in a reliable way, the drawings of civil foundations
of the switchyard. It also imports reinforcement bar charts and dimensions charts for each foundation
calculated in the HMVTools program.

Module of cable trenches and cable ducts: this module includes the cable ducts, the trenches and the
pulling boxes, in AutoCAD in 3-D.

Drainage module: this module includes the pipes distribution and the manholes locations used in the
drainage system of the substation. This model considers the inclination of the land and the slopes of
each pipe of the drainage system.

All these modules feed the master model, so that each one can be worked simultaneously by different
engineers and in this way identify interferences among the different modules.

Figure 10. Cable trench, drainage pipe, foundation and Figure 11. Estructure, equipment, foundation and
earthing grid earthing grid

Bill of Materials module: this module generates detailed or summarized lists, of all components of
the substation.

Module for export and import to HMVTools: this module converts a substation designed in
DISAC, to a digital model that is stored in a database, and then allows to import the partial or total
model according to the requirements of the designers from different workstations. This facilitates that
several engineers from different disciplines and specialties work on the same digital model, reducing
the errors due to changes in the physical layout as everyone is working on a single master model. Also
reduces the response time by updates in the design, for example: a change of an equipment location

7
affects the drawings of civil foundations and possibly the drawings of grounding grid. With this
module is not required that sections be ready, to perform the respective update.

Changes control: in the HMVTools program, the designers and stakeholders are registered to e-mail
lists for notifying changes that occur in the calculations or model; so, when changes are made, an e-
mail is sent to interested parties. For example, when a change is made in the dimensions of an
equipment foundation a notification e-mail is sent to designers of the grounding grid, trenches and
cable ducts, to verify if the change may or may not interfere with these systems.

CONCLUSION

The BIM tools combined with centralized procedures of standardized designs and data bases, have
allowed HMV engineers improve their response capacity in the design of high and extra high voltage
substations, optimizing design times, reducing cost, increasing quality, and facilitating the learning
curve to the new designers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Working Group B3-15 CIGRE. “Guidelines to cost reduction air insulted substation” August
2008.
[2] C. F. Ramirez. “Subestaciones de Alta y Extra Alta Tensión”, HMV Ingenieros Ltda. Colombia,
2003.