Engineering Studies

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Engineering Studies

Engineering Studies

NexGrade Engineering performs various power system and control system analysis and studies. The studies are designed to analyze existing or future systems to improve performance, enhance quality, ensure safety, and maximize reliability. Our engineers have extensive experience performing analysis, reviewing results, and developing detailed reports and documentation.

NexGrade Engineering uses various software tools to perform these analysis and produce reports including SKM, Millsoft, ETAP, MathCAD, and SynchroWave.

Key Parameters

Arc Flash Hazard Analysis

NexGrade Engineering can preform the necessary arc flash assessment and provide a report as well as warning labels to be applied to equipment.

Arc flashes occur when electric current leaves its intended path and travels through the air from one conductor to another, or to ground. The results are often violent.When a person is in close proximity to the arc flash, serious injury and even death can occur.

The cause can include but are not limited to the following:

Dust
Condensation
Material Failure
Foreign object
Corrosion
Faulty Installation

NFPA 70E details out requirements for safe work practices to protect personnel by reducing exposure to major electrical hazards.

OSAH 1910.335 deals with electrical safeguards for personnel protection and references NFPA 70E.

Protective device Coordination

A protective device coordination study analyzes a complete system and all protective devices which feed particular loads. The results of the study will provide recommended settings for all protective devices which minimizes unnecessary trips during power disturbances and/or faults. These settings are applied to protective relays, circuit breakers, and switch-gear with the intended consequence of reliability and continued operation during power system disruption.

NexGrade Engineering performs this study on every new facility installation but has vast experience analyzing existing facilities and making recommendations to improve reliability.

Load Flow

The purpose of a load flow study is to understand how power flows around the electrical network. This study ensures electrical systems work correctly, have sufficient power supplied by the power grid, equipment is correctly sized, then need for reactive power compensation, and that transformer taps are optimized.

Short Circuit Analysis

A short circuit analysis determine the fault current available at various locations throughout the electrical system, and if the electrical equipment is properly rated for the fault current it would experience in the event of a short circuit.

When a protective device (i.e. circuit breaker) is underrated for the fault current it is seeing, there is a risk that it will not function or trip properly when there is a short circuit. This can then result in an arc flash hazard at this location or at downstream equipment and potentially damaging equipment.

NexGrade Engineering analyses the short circuit based on IEC 60909.

Facility Studies

NexGrade Engineering can also preform studies of various facility systems including but not limited to:

Grounding
Reliability
Hazardous Area Classification

Cause & Effect

Critical to ensuring safe operation and clear understanding of how a system will react to abnormal disruptions is the use of a Cause & Effect Matrix. Inputs (causes) to a system are shown on the vertical axis and outputs (effects) are shown on the horizontal axis. Where inputs meet certain conditions an output is notated as activating under predefined conditions.

An important tool for any operations center to be able to clearly identify and troubleshoot any abnormal situation that may arise.

There are various methods for developing these cause and effect matrices and NexGrade Engineering has experience on many of the methods as well as guiding the process of developing these documents.

Process Control Analysis

An optimized process increases efficiency, improves reliability, and reduces risk. NexGrade Engineering can work to analyze your process to find solutions that will effect all three of this criteria. Our engineers have extensive experience analyzing processes and developing control methods.