My recent projects. Electrical substations

The project under consideration was aimed at creation of base (typical) architectural and construction project(s) of transformer substations drawings according to the effective Electrical Installation Regulations (EIR) and the Construction Norms & Regulations (SNiP) adopted in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Background

In recent years, new building materials and construction production technologies become widely applicable and more space-saving types of electrical equipment and plants become available. That is why a need in full revision of the projects had arisen. With the economic growth in Russia the building and construction industry has improved rapidly, so need in electricity has also become higher, especially in higher-powered electrical substations. At the same time, the situation in Russia was difficult, because an overwhelming majority of the substations had been built between 1930s and 1970s. Of course, they required either full replacement or reconstruction, where it was possible on economic grounds.

Therefore, a concomitant task of the project was unification of the inspection methodology to determine technical state of a building with an electrical substation inside, and also selection of typical solutions for reconstruction with respect to modern engineering and technical tendencies. That unification simplifies considerably the process of approval of electrical substations construction by the supervisory authorities.

Generally, creation of an architectural and construction drawing base was my responsibility, for at that moment the company planned to take a dominant position in this segment of the local market, and none of the design organizations had a similar specialization and engineering and technical base in the city, given the fact that demand for this kind of projects increased every day.

In outline, my part of the project consisted in searching for and collecting the existing typical electrical substations projects (cooperating with the other design companies and draft libraries), their further technical analysis and considerable revision. At a later stage, when a customer showed interest, a group of specialists and I made inspection of a substation or a construction object, then I selected the most suited project and bound the building to it, taking into account peculiarities of the surrounding environment of the construction site. After the whole project had been approved by all supervision bodies and confirmed by the customer, construction began and I made general oversight of the project and its changes, performed author’s supervision at the stage of reconstruction or new construction.

I was at the head of a group of specialists consisted of two experienced electric engineers and one construction engineer, who had good drafting skills and practical construction experience. That part of designing work connected with selection of electric equipment to be placed inside a substation was performed by them. Also they made rough drawings of a typical substation, which I corrected afterward.

My Workplace Activity

Thus, at the first stage I had the following tasks: to search for the typical projects, upon which the existing Russian electrical substations had been built; look through the available foreign substations projects; make changes in the projects, and redesign the constructions if necessary, using my personal experience and effective standards; redraw the revised parts or a whole project in electronic format.

Search for the typical projects was performed mainly in the public technical library and also I used customers’ projects of the built substations. Additionally, foreign experience had been analysed on the basis of paper materials collected at different construction conferences and exhibitions. Accordingly, it was necessary to change material specification, because the construction standards and properties of used materials had changed as well. I had analysed the changes in the SNiP of the RF adopted in the last years and studied the assortment and properties of the construction materials, which are used or can be used instead of the existing. Scrutiny of basic material’s properties in developers’ catalogues had helped a lot. After that, I had added an explanation note to the projects, with recommendations on how to use specific materials, which conform to the substation construction requirements best of all.

The deep research had shown that the main tendency in substations designing was the attempt to minimize walking space and use internal area for electrical equipment as much as possible. Especially this problem concerns construction of a new substation on a dense city development area, where present-day projects can’t place the required equipment inside due to limited dimensions of a plot allotted for the substation. In the result, the base (typical) projects of Common Complete Transformer Substations (Universal 1 CCTS for oil transformers and Universal 1M and Universal 2M CCTS for “dry” transformers of Trihal type) had been developed. This allowed to place a substation with required capacity on the restricted area by minimizing passages and interior walls thickness.

 

The AutoCAD/Revit program was used in designing, with the help of which I transferred old projects in electronic form and remade creatively. For example, internal dimensions had been expanded by me to the maximum (new equipment often cannot be housed in old substations); new unit coupling methods had been applied; problems of acoustic insulation and lightning protection also had been solved by me in a new way.

In every specific case of the CCTS building binding to the site I faced necessity of detailed calculation of foundation laying depth (depending on normative and calculated soil freezing depth), determination of foundation bearing capacity and building settlement in general (as a huge number of cable inlets and outlets in the foundation edges limit permissible settlements to 50 mm).

Also, it was very important to calculate correctly the drainage system around the CCTS building, as the groundwater level is very high and irregular and geology is bad, which is usual for current region in general. In connection with great expenditure of time and efforts spent for detailed calculation in every project, search for analogous computer programs had been made to automate this process, but unsuccessfully. All foreign programs for foundation calculation were poorly adapted to the Russian standard system, and drainage calculation programs had not been found at all, because the programs like “Hydraflow Storm Sewers Extension” for AutoCAD were created only in 2009. Having relied on my previous experience in multifunctional underground complexes designing and my knowledge of foundations and drainage systems obtained in the process of education, I together with the students-programmers have elaborated a foundation calculator and a drainage calculator based on Microsoft Excel enabling to get necessary data on foundation dimensions, their laying depth and drainage pipes diameter, using the initial parameters.

Workers of my department helped me, but they did not have experience in electrical substations construction designing, so I had to instruct them additionally, usually in the form of brief lectures about destination of the elements of the substation project. Also in the course of the project I had advanced vocational training courses at the Military Engineering and Technical University and occupied the position of Chief Engineer.

 

1. A business customer provided and obtained approval of technical design assignment.
2. Equipment lay-out inside a substation and the corresponding requirements were determined in compliance with electrical engineers’ observations.
3. On the basis of equipment type and dimensions I designed a new project or introduced changes in the typical project whereas design engineer made the typical units drafts.
4. The project was ratified by the customer and then I submitted it to the supervisory authorities for approval.
5. At the stage of construction foreman’s observations concerning the project were submitted to design engineer.
6. I performed author’s supervision and introduced modifications required in the project.  

When a bank of typical electronic drafts had been created, the second stage started. At this stage I adapted the typical project to the specific customer’s needs. I had to find a creative approach to the designing stage, because the projects were divided in two types: projects of a new substation added to the existing master plot plan; and projects of substation reconstruction, in which reinforcement was to be made on the basis of technical state inspection and replanning, with regard for new electric equipment to be installed in it. After this, I approved the finished project in a supervision organization.

Considerable complications occurred when solving tasks of reconstruction of the existing substation to update it technically (place new transformers of more power and modern electrical equipment), because the main question is – whether the building is suitable for reconstruction or it is necessary to demolish it and build a new one due to walls condition or lack of space for the modern equipment. I have studied and modified the visual and instrumental technical state inspection system for the old substation buildings, using special equipment to determine brick masonry condition, concrete durability and reinforcement state. For example, I made radiometric thermal imaging inspection with the help of SAT HOTFIND thermal imager, enabling to determine instantly wall condition on the basis of the thermogram. During substations state inspection I used my knowledge of material science obtained at the State University of Architecture & Civil Engineering.

Also, when performing author’s supervision over construction of a new substation, I revealed some typical problems. For example, sometimes there were problems with installation of pipes (transit blocks) for input/output of cables and ground loop in the foundation walls, because the missed openings for them had to be bored right during construction, which causes certain difficulties. Later on, when I had come in deeper contact with the producing factory, I made a proposal to create a universal project, enabling to  produce and assemble a substation directly at the producing factory and then mount it on the construction site on a tight schedule.

Using previous experience in typical substations development, I cooperated with specialists from my department and developed a project of the Universal Complete Transformer Substation (UCTS) for two transformers with 630...1600 kVa rating each in the form of ready-to-operate reinforced concrete frames with mounted electrical equipment inside. Further UCTS installation and its connection to the electrical network takes 24 hours and is made directly on the assembled reinforced concrete foundation plate, prepared for mounting by a team of builders. So, full independence of substation construction was being achieved in the shortest possible time.

Summary

The given project has played a big role in regional electrical substation designing, as afterwards it was used by many designing organizations as a model. Designing process unification and conformity to the effective standards had been achieved, typical problems had been solved and new types of substations had been developed. Work efficiency has increased due to time reduction for every project, which has led to increase of number of customers. I played a key role in this project because I not only fulfilled general management, but also selected typical projects, developed creatively and implemented new projects, supervised construction right up to the commissioning. Productive work and colleagues’ consultations also improved quality of the project.