Architectural Elements¶
X Grid/Y Grid¶
X Grid and Y Grid components are used to establish a location for Rooms. Equipment is placed inside Rooms, which are affected by point-to-point calculations.
Space Type¶
Space Types are used to assign power densities to architectural entities such as Floors and Rooms.
For example, Engineers perform load massing calculations in order to size their main distribution equipment. They allocate power differently for floor loads, lighting loads and mechanical loads.
Space Types are customizable and a set of default load values are provided. A variety of Space Types allows the Engineer to study and explore the power density requirements of a project.
Room¶
Rooms are used to establish locations for equipment. Based on these locations, Engineers can perform their point-to-point calculations. Rooms can also be packaged to create custom load packages.
Riser¶
A Riser is an entity used to offset conduit routes. By default, the length of a conduit route is determined by the distance between the source and the load. However, Engineers are often allocated Risers or shaft space to house their conduits or feeders. The conduits are routed from their source, through the Riser and terminate at the load.
Architectural Package¶
Architectural Packages are used to model the load or power density of a group of architectural elements.
For example, a group of Floors could each have their Space Type designated as Office, which has a specific power density. This group of Floors can be packaged as a load, and fed from distribution Equipment.
Select a group of Floors or Rooms. Then, in the orange textbox, enter a name for the Package and then click the (+) button. This is packaging a group of Floors as a load.
To view the Package, click the Architectural Package tab. These loads can be attached to any distribution Equipment in the network.
Appliance¶
Appliances are used to calculate the load of residential projects and are grouped by classes as defined by the NEC. Appliances are assigned to a Unit Type.
Unit Type¶
Unit Types are used to group Appliances together in order to calculate the load of residential projects. A Unit Type is assigned to an Apartment.
Apartment¶
An Apartment contains a Unit Type. It also contains information regarding its location and loading information. A group of Apartments can make up an Apartment Package.
Apartment Package¶
Apartment Packages are used to group Apartments together in order to calculate a load.
Load Allocation¶
Load Allocations are used to supplement the Architectural Packages. In addition to Floor or Room power densities, power can be allocated to specific Floors.
A designer may want to account for a load that only occurs on Floors of a specific Space Type. For example, if a designer wanted to account for a 20 hp motor on every Office Floor, they would need to create a new Load Allocation. Then, they would filter that Allocation by the Floor Space Type and add it to an Architectural Package.
Load Allocations can be added to Architectural Packages. Use the (+) button to associate the Load Allocation with an Architectural Package.
Diversification¶
Diversification allows the designer to create customizable diversity factors which can be applied to different sections or levels of the distribution system.
A Root Diversity is a factor applied to Root Level loads. A Root Diversity cannot be less zero and cannot be greater than the Distribution Diversity.
A Distribution Diversity is a factor applied to Distribution Level loads.
An End-of-Line Diversity is a factor applied to End-of-Line Loads.
In the example below, a Custom Diversity class called DIV A is created and applied to a small distribution network.
EOL (End-of-Line) loads have a diversity factor of 1 applied to them. DIST. (Distribution) loads have a diversity factor of 0.5 applied to them. ROOT loads have a diversity factor of 0.25 applied to them.
At the Diversity Position DIST., or DB-1, a factor of 0.5 is applied to loads L1 and L2, and summed together. Therefore, the Net Load of DB-1 is 10 kVA.
At DB-2, the same diversities are applied to loads L3 and L4, and the Net Load is also 10 kVA.
At the Diversity Position ROOT, or MDB, a factor of 0.25 is applied to all of its loads, L1, L2, L3, and L4, and summed together.
If any downstream Equipment of MDB has a Load Override value, that value would be diversified instead of the connected load.
