Installation Guidelines for C&I

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General Guidelines on Controls / Special Cable Laying and Termination

CABLE LAYING x While laying the cable, a roller shall be temporarily installed at an appropriate place in order to avoid any damage to the cable while releasing the cable from the drum. Do not stretch the cable tight inside the tray or duct and allow some looseness. At every interval of less than one meter the cable shall be cleaned with a suitable aluminum strip or any other suitable material. At the end of the cable, immediately after the cutting, the cut end shall be covered with a tape, to prevent entry moisture. Once the cables are laid, welding should always be avoided either directly on the tray or above the tray and the welding shall be prohibited. If absolutely necessary, steel sheet or any other nonflammable material shall be placed over the tray or the cover so that the cable will not get damaged. All the cables should be properly laid in cable trays, dressed and clamped with aluminum flats. The cable shall be terminated at both ends with suitable lugs and ferrules and should be glanded properly. For identification of cables aluminum tags at regular intervals through out the run of the cable should be provided. All electrical connection shall be tested for polarity before connection. The cables shall be meggered before laying. While laying cable the instrumentation cables shall not mix with power cables. Care shall be taken to avoid sharp bending and kinking of conductor damaging insulation and stressing the cable beyond the pulling force recommended by the manufacturer. Cable shall be protected at all times from mechanical damage.

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The minimum radius of formed bend of an insulated cable shall be 12D for unarmored cables and 15D for ARMOURED cables where D is the overall diameter of the cables. No cables shall be laid in ducts or trenches where other services such as oil pipes, steam or water pipes are laid. Where cabling passes through brickwork or concrete work suitable local protection against mechanical damage shall be provided. The layout of all cables shall be arranged to give adequate clearance from other services and cables shall be routed in such a way to avoid hot zones. Jointing of cables shall be avoided as far as possible. However, jointing if at all necessary shall be done and recorded in document. The proper care shall be taken for dressing the cable. While laying the cable dressing shall be done after each run of cable. It is not advisable to dress the cable after laying all the cables. The cables shall be held in the trays temporarily by binding wire and shall be clamped finally with G1 strips. All the Field Instrument cables which are not coming in tray shall be terminated using flexible conduit pipes. The connection to the instrument shall be either from bottom or from side. This is in order to prevent water penetration inside the instrument. The shielded cable shall be terminated, as shown in the figure shielding and the earthing wire shall be bunched together and if necessary a suitable grounding wire shall be soldered on the shield and the same shall be terminated to the shield earth. The earthing of shield wire shall be done at one end of the cable only. In order to identify the concerned terminal, each wire shall be provided with a suitable ferrule. Ferruling pattern shall be as per the inter connection specification. If nothing is mentioned in inter connection details. The method of ferruling shall be jointly decided with the end-user.

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The cable termination job for instrumentation work shall be carried out by a skilled electrician. The cable has to be properly dressed inside the junction box with proper cable ties. Before terminating the cable each core shall be identified individually in both ends of cable with a continuity tester and termination shall be carried out. The lugs/ferrules used shall be of proper size and type. Ring type lugs shall be used in the places where 100% break free termination is required, such as current transformer circuits. In other place depending on the type of terminal U-type or pin type lugs shall be used. The lugs shall be insulated type only. Crimping shall be done with proper crimping tool. Use of cutting plier should be avoided. Lugs shall not be used for compensating cable and single stranded cables. Power and control cables installed along buildings and structures, ceilings, walls, etc. which are required to be protected against mechanical damage shall be taken in G.I. conduits. GI conduits shall also be used for flameproof installations, wherever required, with sealing at both ends. In corrosive atmosphere, where 1100 V grade cables are required to be taken in pipes, rigid heavy duty PVC pipes shall be provided. Wherever direct heat radiation exists, heat isolating barriers for cabling system shall be adopted. At certain places where hazardous fumes / gases may cause fire to the cables, cable trenches after installation of cable may be sandfilled. In corrosive atmosphere, PVC conduits shall be used for cables. Single core cables, when pulled individually shall be taken through PVC pipes only. Laying and installation of power, control and special cables shall generally conform to IS : 1255

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Suitable extra length of cables shall be provided for all feeders for any future contingency, in consultation with Engineer. All cables shall be provided with identification tags indicating the cable numbers in accordance with the cable circuit schedule. Tags shall be fixed at both ends of cables (both inside & outside of panel) both sides of floor / wall crossings, every 25 m spacing for straight runs or as specified by Engineer for easy identification of cable. When a cable passes through a wall, cable number tags shall be fixed on both sides of the wall. Single core cables for AC circuits shall form a complete circuit in trefoil formation supported by means of trefoil clamps of non-magnetic material. Power cables above 1100 V grade shall be generally laid in ladder type trays in one layer with spacing not less than one cable diameter of bigger diameter cable. All 1100 V grade multi-core power cables and single core DC cables shall be placed in single layer, touching each other and clamped by means of single or multiple galvanized MS saddles/aluminum strips/ nylon cable ties. Cables above 35 mm diameter shall be clamped individually. Control cables shall be laid touching each other and wherever required may be taken in two layers. All control cables shall be clamped with a common clamp/tie. Segregation of the cables on the basis of their types and their functions shall be as under for horizontal formation. a) HT cables shall be laid in the top tier(s) b) LT power cables to be laid in the tray(s) below the HT cable trays. c) LT control cables to be laid in the tray(s) next below to the LT power cable (trays). d) Special control cables including screened control cables to be laid in the bottom most tray(s).

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For vertical formations, the trays closest to the wall shall be considered as bottom most tray and the order indicated in clause just above shall be followed. However, where there is no clear distinction of bottom/top trays, the order convenient for linking the horizontal and vertical formations shall be followed. When it may not be possible to accommodate the cables as per the criteria indicated in the two clauses indicated above, the following rules shall override the criteria. However, prior approval of the Engineer will be required. In hierarchical order: a) Control cables are mixed up with the special control cables with clear minimum gap of 100 mm between them. b) LT power cables are mixed up with control cable with clear minimum gap of 150 mm between them. c) LT power cables are mixed with HT power cables with clear minimum gap of 200 mm between them. d) LT power cables are mixed up with special control cables with clear minimum gap of 200 mm between them.

Termination and jointing of aluminum/copper conductor power cables shall be done by means of compression method using compression type aluminum/tinned copper lugs. The drum should be always rolled in the direction of arrow for rolling marked on the drum. In the absence of any such mark, the drum should be rolled in the direction same as that of inside end of the cable and opposite to that of the outside end. Where the cable is to be joined with existing cable, the sequence of cores at the two ends to be joined should be in the opposite direction, i.e. if at one end it is in clockwise direction, at the other end it should be in anticlockwise direction. This is necessary to avoid the crossing of cores while jointing. This will also decide the direction in which the cable is to be pulled.

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Where the cables are necessarily laid and jointed in very cold regions, both the cables and the ambient temperatures should be above 0C and have remained so for the previous 24 hours. During such conditions, the cable should also not be bend to very small radius. This is due to the reason that at very low temperatures PVC compounds become stiff and brittle, and are likely to crack and shatter when stuck hard or bend to small radius. Armoured cables: All bonding clamps at the joints and terminations and the armour wires should be thoroughly cleaned. The clamps should be adequately tightened. This is necessary to ensure proper electrical contact, because armour is the only return path for earth fault current. Unarmoured cables: In case of Unarmoured cables, the external metallic earth bonding connector of adequate size should be used. Earth: All joints, terminations, ARMOUR wires and external bounding should be connected to earth. Whenever possible, ARMOUR at one end of the cable should be connected to main earth system at the supplying end by employing metallic connectors. Precautions should be taken to eliminate the chemical and bimetallic corrosion of the earth connectors of bonds. Filling compounds : a) The design of the box and the composition of the filling compound should provide an effective sealing against entry of moisture to conductor ferrules and ARMOUR connectors. b) If hot pouring protective compounds are used, the temperature of the compound while pouring should not exceed 150C.

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