Electrical Busbar Chamber

Yes. The chamber has to be bigger than the busbar.

Have you checked the design standards and codes for your area for clues?

Where are you?

Are you a student? Contractor? Designer? Consultant? Interviewee?

What color is the chamber?

I am doing post graduation in India and this topic is part of my thesis. I searched for IS standards yet, I could not get any specific ones related to busbars. I want to use the dimensions of the chamber for further analysis in my thesis.. The chamber is made of SS and is grey in color.

There are British Standards and American codes such as NEC and NFPA List of NFPA codes & standards.

Do you all see the problem here? This guy is from India asking great questions that really pertain to the real world infrastructure. America is losing the battle here. Does anyone else see this? I see maintenance in America in the worse condition it has been in since 1945. It has many facets, mainly MFG cutting back, last thing you really want to do is cut maintenance. But this is the first cut and always the same cut. India is going to take over America's maintenance. Unless we stop it.

Lyn, your a smart guy!

I'm just old.

See also the minimum bend radius standards for any wires/cables that might be attached. These may vary by locale.

Design of bus-bar chamber is a designers job that requires sufficient technical knowledge. Thumb rules are not the criteria but the users requirement , location of installation type of cable to be used weather to be installed out side or inside , ambient temperature of the location where you want to install the panel. There are custom made panels are available from reputed manufacturers from which you can take some clues.

refer the link below given by a reputed Indian manufacturer.

http://www.gemlightskerala.com/gemlights/download/BUSBAR%20CHAMBER%20SYSTEM.pdf

Yes! The busbar continuous current rating is decided also by a rating factor which is based on the total cross sectional area of the bus bars to the total cross sectional area of the bus bar chamber or bus bar enclosure. The higher the ratio, the higher will be the de-ration.

I suggest that you go thro a publication called " Electrical Design of medium Voltage Busbars, Bus Connections and Bus Duct" published by the Tamilnadu Electrical Installation Engineers' Association 'A' Grade, in Chennai. It costs about INR 350.00 or Electrical Power Engineering by K C Agarwal (costing about INR 5, 800 when I bought it about four years ago).

Mr K.C. Agarwal,s book is basically meant for Engineering students studying for Power Engineering course and is very good for an Engineering student to understand the theory behind the subject. But for a real designer he has to consider various factors regarding functional requirements,location of installation ,ambient conditions, economy etc.as he states in his own book. Designers in your own company ( A big name in India for LT Panels) makes a lot of study before quoting for customer specified panels and also quote from your own standard products that suits the customer. As you know that is the basic difference between panels made by ordinary panel builders and and reputed manufacturers.

I beg to differ! In fact, the fact is on the contrary!

K C Agrawal's book is not at all a text book meant for students. It is a through & through professional book written professionally with lot of practical insights. I doubt whether we both are referring to the same book.

Of course, I very much know the difference between reputed panel builders and "round-the-street-corner" panel builders. In fact, in my tenure as a trainer, I happened to conduct training programmes on panel design to various panel builders' staff from across the country. I was shocked to learn that close to 80% (yes, a whooping 80%) of the 'so-called' panel builders, did not know the scientific reason behind the insulator spacing distance. They said that they maintain the span as it was so in some reputed panel builder's panels.

I purchased a copy of it for my office long back and own one for my own personal use . The book is one of the best for an Electrical engineer to begin with. I have been using it for induction training for my new recruits. But to design HT and LT panels you have to study much beyond that.Once you start to design panel you will realise it as I have experienced .To design a standard Panel it is much easier as the data is available from reputed manufacturers. They provide you with the required technical data and information. They even give you help from their design department. But when the requirement is special as I had to do for special purposes utility like panels to be installed in odd locations, explosives and Chemical plants etc lot of information and data was to be collected before putting up the draft on the board.

Thanks electricalexpert65.. I will go through it..