COMPUTER-AIDED-DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF LOW-VOLTAGE ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTION-SYSTEMS

The design of electrical installations in buildings is mostly done man ually. The manual design process is tedious and very time consuming. A lthough AutoCAD has been used by many designers, it is utilized as a d rafting tool rather than a design tool. This paper summarizes a new ap proach in the computer-aided design for electrical installations. Syst ematic data structure has been implemented to represent both the desig n element and the complete design files. Two design methods are propos ed and the completed design is then checked against a series of simula tion tests which models the normal loading, overloading and short-circ uit conditions. The completed design can also be presented in a single -line diagram and automatically drafted on a large plotter. (C) 1997 E lsevier Science B.V.