Electrical Connection Summer 2016

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46 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON SUMME R 20 1 6
SIZE DOES MATTER
P icture yourself on a job site about
to pull a cable. You know selecting
a cable too small will cause a series
of problems and if the cable is bigger than
necessary, it would be a waste of time,
effort, money and space. Also on your
mind are the consequences of laying a
cable not compliant with AS3008, the
Standard concerned with cable selection.
It’s enough to make even the most
seasoned of sparkies sweat. But, the
thought of meticulously thumbing through
page after page of the Standard is enough
to put anyone to sleep.
The website, ,
has been created to assist electrical
engineers, technicians and electricians to
quickly select and size cables and ensure
AS3008 compliance.
Using their smart phone, an electrician
can input relevant data into the website
and it will instantly create a simple cable
selection and sizing report based on the
Australian Standard.
If you wanted to know the load capacity
of a cable for specific site conditions, you
would input the cable’s current, power,
phase voltage, power factor, phase
rotation and phase and the website
would then respond with a graphical
report showing phase vector information,
current waveforms, power, de-rated
current capacity, percentage voltage
drop and the thermal stress limit for a
particular sized cable.
To calculate impendence, you would
input the cable’s metal, core structure,
core type, material group, insulation
designation and configuration.
For current rating, you would input
the cable’s highest ambient temperature,
arrangement and the number of circuits.
It will also calculate voltage if you input
cable length, max voltage drop, fault
current, clearance time, let-through timing
and fault current timing.
Andrew Cripps created the website
because he wanted to be able to check the
calculations he was using in his work as an
electrical engineer.
For this reason the website has been
designed to help users gain a better
understanding of the mathematical
underpinnings of the website’s
calculations, which is why Andrew
includes graphical representation of the
data in the reports.
“A lot of electricians have learnt about
vectors and the graphs give them a way
to play around with the result and get a
better understanding of what is going
on,” Andrew says.
“Originally I designed it with electrical
engineers in mind, for use during the
design process; but, after putting the app
on a few online forums it has become
popular with electricians as an easy way to
size cables on site.”
When the website was first built, it
had more functionality but Andrew got
the feedback that at times it was too
complicated to use.
“I’ve redesigned the site so it’s
intentionally very simple in its design and
function,” Andrew says.
“The most important thing for me is
that people who are not familiar with the
app should be able to pick it up and get
the answers they need within a minute.
There’s no need for training to know
how to use it.”
And best of all, unlike the AS3008
document it’s free.
Of course, there are sparkies out there
would will prefer to size cables the old
fashion way, which is a bit like using the
street directory instead of Google Maps.
For them, the site can still be helpful as
a reference to knowwhere to look in the
AS3008 document
> Ele Study: AS3008
AS FAR AS AUSTRALIAN
STANDARDS ARE CONCERNED,
CABLE SIZES MATTER. NOW,
A WEBSITE HAS BEEN CREATED
TO MAKE POWER CABLE SIZING
EASY FOR ELECTRICIANS. JOE
YOUNG REPORTS.
The website, , has been created to ensure AS3008 compliance.
APP