Panduit is built on a foundation of innovation, and our unwavering commitment to excellence in product design and performance was recently recognized with a Best in Show, Commercial category, in the 10th annual ANSYS 2019 Hall of Fame competition.
ANSYS, a global leader in engineering simulation software, conducts the Hall of Fame competition to highlight how engineers are solving key challenges with ANSYS Pervasive Engineering Simulation solutions across numerous industries. Panduit was one of three companies recognized in the Commercial category.
Panduit’s winning entry showcased how Panduit engineers optimized the design of high voltage cable cleat products to prevent the substantial damage that can occur before circuit breakers react to a short. The entry also highlighted how Panduit achieved significant cost and time savings for its latest line of cable cleat products.
Advanced R&D Solutions for Product Design
Cable cleats are needed to restrain high voltage cables during short circuit events. Current levels in these events can range upwards of 200,000 Amps. In the worst case of a 3-phase short, magnetic field induced repulsive forces between the cables can range upwards of 10,000 pounds and develop within 1/100th of a second. Substantial damage can occur before circuit breakers can react to the short. Cable restraint is critical to protecting personnel and infrastructure as well as reducing downtime.
Using state-of-the-art simulation software, Panduit’s engineers modeled this highly dynamic, multi-body contact, 3-phase alternating current short circuit test event that occurs over a period of 1/10th second (ref: IEC 61914:2015), can develop component velocities of more than 2000 inches/second, and exhibit high material deformation and catastrophic failure. Significant simulation development milestones included:
- Adjusting the stiffness, yield strength, and mass of solid copper conductors to behave like stranded conductors at the prevailing temperatures
- Developing high strain-rate material models for each component
- Integrating the electro-magnetic solution capability into the simulation
- Development of a 30-variable mathematical model to exactly match the short circuit test current pattern and using a genetic algorithm to find the variable coefficients
- Developing element erosion criteria to enable simulation of physical failure
- Successful verification in early testing
The new cable cleat product lines were originally certified in testing very near the peak short circuit current levels predicted by the simulation. The understanding of the variables involved in the 3-phase short circuit event and repeated simulations to verify design changes and predict peak current certification levels in testing resulted in a substantial reduction in the prototype-and-test cycle.
To find out more about Panduit’s legacy of innovation and our future-forward network and industrial electrical infrastructure technologies, visit our research and development section on panduit.com.
