Electrical Installation

Lec 5
Domestic circuits
• Domestic circuits are either radial or ring final circuits and are likely to be arranged in the following ways:
• Radial circuits are fed from the consumer unit and run in either chain or like the spokes of a wheel (i.e. they
radiate out from their source). Typical of domestic radial circuits are lighting, water heating, storage heating
and cooking.
• Ring final circuits are almost unique to the United Kingdom. The ring final circuit is always used to feed 13 A
socket outlets to BS 1363. The circuit starts at the consumer unit, loops in and out of each socket and, finally,
returns to the consumer unit to terminate in the same terminals as it started.
Question 1
• Discuss the difference between Radial and Ring circuits.
Electrical Design - Important terms
• Ambient temperature : The temperature of the air or other medium
where the equipment is to be used.
• Circuit protective conductor (CPC): A protective conductor
connecting exposed conductive parts of equipment to the main
earthing terminal.
• Current-carrying capacity : The maximum current which can be
carried by a conductor under specified conditions without its steady
state temperature exceeding a specified value.
• Design current : The magnitude of the current intended to be carried
by a circuit in normal service
• Earthing conductor: A protective conductor connecting a main
earthing terminal of an installation to an earth electrode or other
means of earthing
Electrical Design - Important terms
• Fault current : An overcurrent resulting from a fault of negligible
impedance between live conductors (short-circuit current) or
between a line conductor and earth (earth fault current)
• Overcurrent : A current exceeding the rated value. For conductors,
the rated value is the current-carrying capacity.
DESIGN PROCEDURE
• The requirements of IET Regulations make it clear that circuits must
be designed, and the design data made readily available.
• In fact, this has always been the case with previous editions of the
Regulations, but it has not been so clearly indicated.
• Basically, there are eight stages in such a procedure.
• These are the same whatever the type of installation, be it a cooker
circuit or a distribution cable feeding a distribution board in a factory.
 DESIGN PROCEDURE

Add to this the requirement to select conduit and trunking sizes and we have a complete
design.
DESIGN CURRENT
Question
• 3 numbers of 1320 W, P.F 0.85, 230 V, 50 Hz air conditioners (12000 Btu)
• 1 numbers of 2350 W, P.F 0.85, 230 V, 50 Hz air conditioners ( 18000 Btu)
• 3 numbers of 1200 W, P.F 1.00 ,230 V, 50 Hz geyser units
• 1 numbers of 3000 W, P.F 1.00 230V, 50 Hz cooker/oven unit
• 1 numbers of 1300 W, P.F 0.85 230V, 50 Hz water motor
• 1 numbers of 1000 W, P.F 0.85 230V, 50 Hz pressure pump
• 1 numbers of 600 W, P.F 0.85 230V, 50 Hz roller door
• 1 numbers of 6000 W, P.F 0.87, 400 V, 50 Hz air conditioners
• 1 number of 3800 W, P.F. 0.87, 400 V, 50 Hz pool equipment

• Find the design current

NOMINAL SETTING OF PROTECTION
• Having determined Ib we must now select the nominal setting of the protection such that In≥Ib. This value
may be taken from IET Regulations, Tables 41.2, 41.3 or 41.4 or from manufacturers’ charts.
• The choice of fuse or CB type is also important and may have to be changed if cable sizes or loop
impedances are too high.
Rating factors
• When a cable carries its full load current it can become warm.
• This is no problem unless its temperature rises further due to other
influences, in which case the insulation could be damaged by
overheating.
• These other influences are high ambient temperature; cables grouped
together closely; uncleared over-currents; and contact with thermal
insulation.
• because of the high fusing factor of BS 3036 fuses, the rating of the fuse In should be ≤0.725Iz.
Hence 0.725 is the rating factor to be used when BS 3036 fuses are used
Application of rating factors
Tabulated current-carrying capacity
Choice of cable size
• Having established the tabulated current-carrying capacity It of the
cable to be used, it now remains to choose a cable to suit that value.
• The tables in Appendix 4 of the IET Regulations list all the cable sizes,
current-carrying capacities and voltage drops of the various types of
cable.
• For example, for PVC-insulated singles, single-phase, in conduit,
having a current carrying capacity of 45A, the installation is by
reference method B (Table 4A2), the cable table is 4D1A and the
column is 4. Hence, the cable size is 10.0mm2 (column 1).
VOLTAGE DROP (IET REGULATIONS 525 AND APPENDIX 4)
• The resistance of a conductor increases as the length increases and/or the cross-sectional area decreases.
Associated with an increased resistance is a drop in voltage, which means that a load at the end of a long
thin cable will not have the full supply voltage available.
• The IET Regulations require that the voltage drop V should not be so excessive that equipment does not
function safely. They further indicate that the following percentages of the nominal voltage at the origin of
the circuit will satisfy.

•
Question
• Find the voltage drop on a power circuit supplied from a 230V source by a 16.0mm2 two-core copper cable
23m long, clipped direct and carrying a design current of 33A.
• What is the Maximum allowable length of the conductor?
SHOCK RISK
(IET REGULATIONS SECTION 411)
• the actual loop impedance Zs should not exceed those values given in Tables 41.2, 41.3 and 41.4 of the IET
Regulations. This ensures that circuits feeding final and distribution circuits will be disconnected, in the
event of an earth fault, in the required time.
Zs = Ze+R1+R2.
Some typical loadings of domestic appliances
• Conductors and the current-carrying components of accessories (e.g. switches, fuses, circuit breakers, socket
outlets and plugs) must be large enough to carry the maximum current which the connected apparatus
can cause to flow, without overheating or being overstressed.
• Conductors and accessories are rated in terms of current in amperes. Therefore, before the required size or ‘rating’
of a conductor or accessory can be determined, the consumption of the connected apparatus in amperes must be
calculated. This is known as the design current (Ib)
• The size of a cable or accessory is not necessarily determined by the total power rating of all the current-
consuming devices connected to it.
• It depends on what percentage of the connected load is likely to be operating at any one time. This percentage use
is called the diversity factor.
Diversity Factors

The amount by which the figures given are increased or decreased for any given installation should be decided by
the engineer responsible for the design.
Diversity Factors
• It should be noted that the object of applying diversity to domestic final circuits is not to enable a reduction
in circuit cable size, but to arrive at a reduced current demand for the whole installation.
• This will mean that the size of the main tails, consumer unit and any control gear, etc., can be realistically
sized.
Example: The maximum demand of an 8 kW/230 V cooker would be
8000/230 = 35 A
• The assumed demand after applying diversity would be
10 + 30% of (35 - 10) = 10 + 30 × 25/100 = 17.5 A

• This is less than the current rating of a 2.5 mm2 cable, but it would not be wise to supply the cooker with
that size. The cable size should be based on the cooker’s maximum demand.
Example
A small installation has followings (Small shop)
• Four number of 5kW 3p cooker
• Two number of 2kW 3p water heaters
• Five number of 13A sockets
• 30 no of twin 28W fluorescent lamp with electronic ballast

Find the power requirement for the above installation