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Cable Ladder Bonding, Is It Necessary.
Cable Ladder Bonding, Is It Necessary.
INTRODUCTION
TPMJH-201001
2
metre lengths of cable are given as:
Fig. 3. Picture of cable ladder sections joined with spice plate showing the
earth bonding wire connected.
TPMJH-201001
%Improvement
A B 100
%
A
1
(1)
A. General
There are various types of cable ladder in use which are
generally constructed of steel and hot dip galvanised. For the
Kounis cable ladder the galvanising is a coating of zinc at 390
gm/m2, approximately a thickness of 55m. These cable
ladder types include:
TPMJH-201001
3/50 (NEMA 16A), 1.6mm thickness, 100mm high rails
4/70L (NEMA 20B), 1.6mm thickness, 130mm high rails
4/70 (NEMA 20B), 2.0mm thickness, 130mm high rails
5/112 (NEMA 20C), 2.0mm thickness, 146mmm high rails
The most common cable ladder used in mining sites is the
heavy duty type NEMA 20B. The NEMA 20B to Australian
rated ladder represents the Kounis 4/70L using 1.6mm steel
thickness and 4/70 uses 2mm steel thickness, where the 2mm
type ladder is being used predominantly in cyclone prone
areas. For the tests the 1.6mm steel ladder 4/70L will be used
for determining the effect of the bonding wire, as this will be
more common than with the 2mm ladder construction. Also
the 2mm ladder will give improved results over the 1.6mm
ladder tests.
The purpose of the testing is to determine the reduction in
resistance across the splice joint with the addition of the earth
bonding wire, and to determine if the bonding wire provides an
advantage in various scenarios.
B. Method of Testing
The measurement points for the tests have been taken at 1
meter distance from each end of the ladder sections with a gap
between the two ladder sections of 20mm as would be
maintained in an installation to allow for expansion. The
measurement points therefore are 2.02m apart.
The removal of bolts is performed by removing the outer
bolts and working in a clockwise direction on the left side and
an anticlockwise direction on the right side. Bolts are
removed from the front and rear splice plate. Where a bolt is
removed, it refers to one front and one rear bolt being
removed. Where bolts are removed from one side this refers
to the right side section only, both from the front and back.
The various tests are performed with finger tight and torque
tight bolts. The torque for tight bolts is maintained at 28Nm,
the nominal torque value for 10mm bolts. For the finger tight
bolts, the bolts were screwed to a point where the nut and
washer made contact with the ladder, just nipped up by the
unassisted fingers of one hand.
4
only 2 meters long. The effect this will have on the results will
be to raise the resistance values slightly as paralleling effects
of the ladder are reduced due to the remaining 4 meters of
ladder not being present.
C. Test Results
Tables II and III give the test results from the series of tests
carried out on 600mm wide cable ladder, and Tables IV and V
for 300mm wide ladder. Where tests include an earth bonding
wire, the size of the cable is 16mm2.
TABLE II
RESISTANCE TEST RESULTS FOR 600MM WIDE LADDER
WITH FINGER TIGHT BOLTS.
Resistance Without
Resistance With
Percentage
Bolts
Earth Bonding Wire
Earth Bonding
Improvement
Finger
Tight
()
Wire ()
Bolts In Splice Plate - 1 Side Only
4
601.2
532.6
11.41%
3
598.1
534.5
10.63%
2
606.1
536.7
11.45%
1
515.7
540.7
-4.85%
Bolts In Splice Plate 2 Sides
4
573.3
537.7
6.21%
3
606.9
552.7
8.93%
2
630.5
560.7
11.07%
1
662.7
603.9
8.87%
TABLE III
RESISTANCE TEST RESULTS FOR 600MM WIDE LADDER
WITH TIGHTENED BOLTS.
Resistance Without
Resistance With
Percentage
Bolts
Earth Bonding Wire
Earth Bonding
Improvement
Tight
()
Wire ()
Bolts In Splice Plate - 1 Side Only
4
481.0
472.8
1.70%
3
483.2
474.8
1.74%
2
489.9
480.8
1.86%
1
496.4
485.5
2.20%
Bolts In Splice Plate - 2 Sides
4
482.0
472.3
2.01%
3
485.5
475.5
2.06%
2
497.4
485.7
2.35%
1
515.8
500.9
2.89%
The tests have been carried out using a Megger digital low
resistance meter (Ductor tester) with the measuring current set
at 10Amps, giving a range of 1.999m and an accuracy of
0.2%, 0.2.
TPMJH-201001
TABLE IV
RESISTANCE TEST RESULTS FOR 300MM WIDE LADDER
WITH FINGER TIGHT BOLTS.
Resistance Without
Resistance With
Percentage
Bolts
Earth Bonding Wire
Earth Bonding
Improvement
Finger
Tight
()
Wire ()
Bolts In Splice Plate - 1 Side Only
4
534.1
510.4
4.44%
3
537.8
511.1
4.96%
2
544.6
515.3
5.38%
1
543.1
511.9
5.74%
Bolts In Splice Plate - 2 Sides
4
530.0
504.2
4.87%
3
549.6
512.1
6.82%
2
582.3
525.0
9.84%
1
610.1
542.8
11.03%
TABLE V
RESISTANCE TEST RESULTS FOR 300MM WIDE LADDER
WITH TIGHTENED BOLTS.
Resistance Without
Resistance With
Percentage
Bolts
Earth Bonding Wire
Earth Bonding
Improvement
Tight
()
Wire ()
Bolts In Splice Plate - 1 Side Only
4
453.4
446.0
1.63%
3
456.1
447.6
1.86%
2
462.7
454.0
1.88%
1
469.4
458.5
2.32%
Bolts In Splice Plate - 2 Sides
4
453.4
446.0
1.63%
3
457.4
449.8
1.66%
2
470.5
461.8
1.85%
1
484.1
471.4
2.62%
Test
600mm,
Finger
Tight Bolts
600mm,
Tight Bolts
300mm,
Tight Bolts
TABLE VI
MISCELLANEOUS TESTS FOR SECTIONS OF LADDER.
Measured
Measured
Percentage
Resistance with
Resistance with
Improvement
16mm2 Bond wire 25mm2 Bond wire
()
()
524.9
537.7
2.44%
472.8
469.6
0.67%
448.3
445.2
0.69%
TABLE VII
COMPARISONS BETWEEN THEORETICAL AND MEASURED RESISTANCE VALUES
FOR SECTIONS OF 600MM WIDE LADDER AND EARTH WIRE.
Percentage
Theoretical
Measured
Test
Error
Resistance () Resistance ()
Splice Plate
600W Ladder
(1m)
600W Ladder
(2m)
300W Ladder
(1m)
300W Ladder
(2m)
16mm2 Earth
Wire
25mm2 Earth
Wire
230.6
Not Determined
216.8
354.4
5.98%
Not Determined
629.0
Not Determined
323.5
Not Determined
580.7
736.0
699.5
4.96%
461.6
476.0
3.12%
D. Summary of Results
The results show that between 300mm ladder and 600mm
wide ladder, the percentage improvements with the bonding
wire attached are similar and as such further comparisons will
refer only to 600mm ladder as this is the most common type
used. The 300mm wide ladder tests give better results due to
the reduction in rung resistance, and are provided only for
reference.
From the results it can be seen that the measurements taken
are as expected, as bolts are removed the resistance across the
splice increases. The addition of the earth bonding wire in the
case for finger tight bolts provides a reasonably consistent
value as bolts are removed from the one side. As bolts are
removed from both sides of the splice plate the resistance
varies considerably, indicating that the splice plate is
providing the majority of conductivity.
Interestingly the finger tight tests provided a low resistance
value without the bonding wire and with only a small
improvement of around 10 to 11% with the bonding wire
attached. The case of torque bolts shows that the splice plate
provides a very low resistance, and little improvement was
measured with the addition of the bonding wire, around 1.74%
with all tightened bolts. The use of a larger bonding wire
25mm2 also proved little advantage in reducing the effective
resistance, as the percentage improvement is only 0.7% against
using the 16mm2 wires.
Comparing the measurements between a straight 2m length
of ladder, at 629.0 to the tested joint section without a
bonding wire of 481.0 , shows that the tested splice section
has less resistance than a nominal section of ladder, this can be
attributed to the paralleling effect of the splice plate with the
ladder rail sections. Also comparing a length of ladder with
copper cable shows that a one meter length of cable ladder has
less resistance than a 600mm length of cable, 16mm2 or
TPMJH-201001
%I
splice
(3)
V. DISCUSSION
A. General
Theoretical results show that the bonding wire has a small
advantage, around 15% in reducing the resistance at the splice
section, however this result is only based on using an isolated
section of ladder, localised at the splice joint. This is only
across a short distance of 540mm, not a complete ladder
length.
The findings presented from the testing shows that the
bonding wire provides almost no value in reducing the
resistance across the splice plate; however this testing is
performed over an increased distance of 2 meters compared
with the theoretical result. Further, the effectiveness should be
calculated over complete lengths of ladder which are joined
together to obtain a better representation. To determine how
the testing point locations affects the results a look at end to
end resistance is required.
(2)
The probability of a failure of one bolt or bolts (be it a
bonding wire bolt or a splice plate bolt) is difficult to
determine and a figure is not assumed, rather one method is
compared to another. If a system is relied on with a single
bonding wire then if a single bolt fails, the complete earthing
system fails. However if two bonding wires are installed, one
on each of the side rails, then the probability would be halved,
assuming the events are independent, in other words, would be
TPMJH-201001
TPMJH-201001
Fig. 6. Cable tray sections, vertical adjustable splice plate showing bonding
wires.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author thanks Kounis Metal Industries and David
Kounis, Sheet Metal Manager for providing cable ladder,
premises, materials and test equipment for performing the tests
required for the paper.
REFERENCES
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