Bentley Substation is an integrated product that lets you efficiently produce the following elements of an electric substation design:
- One-Line Diagrams
- 3D Physical Models
- Protection and Control Schematics
- Panel Layouts
- Wiring Diagrams
- Bill of Materials and other reports
3D Physical Design
Compared to 2D elevation views, a 3D model makes it much easier to visualize and document substation plans, create accurate bills of material, and execute clash detection and clearance checking. It also makes excellent presentation material for the approval process.
In the past, 3D models were often omitted from substation designs due to the complexity of the required software, but Bentley Substation offers new, easy-to-use 3D modeling tools. You can quickly select objects from the catalog and insert them into the model. Each object is linked to the parts database, providing component data, symbol information, and the contents of any accessory kits associated with the part. Hook points connect related objects, so they automatically snap together and move as one unit when repositioned. This enhances modeling accuracy and saves time. Substation-related functionality also includes tools to design or analyze the grounding grid, lightning protection, and a user-defined wire sag algorithm, as well as enhanced capabilities for visualizing and confirming existing stations. Bentley Substation supports workflows for brownfield expansion and retrofit projects, using a combination of 2D existing designs, 3D models, and point clouds.
Intelligent Electrical Design
Bentley Substation incorporates an electrical design engine based on Bentley’s promis•e control system design software. Wires are treated as wires rather than as graphical lines; they break and heal automatically as symbols are placed or removed. Connections are recognized by the software. Wire numbers can be assigned automatically, and different types of wires are allocated to different layers for easier editing. When symbols are placed, unique IDs are prompted by the software, and related symbols are cross-referenced automatically. In this way, you can generate single line drawings and protection and control schematics quickly without errors. Electrical schematics can also be generated automatically.
Work is organized into projects, allowing many drawings to be linked for cross-referencing, error checking, and list generation. Changes made in one part of the project are immediately reflected in the rest of the project, drastically reducing editing time and ensuring accuracy. Project-wide default settings for component identifiers, page formats, title blocks, and more, ensure adherence to standards.
Drawing Modes
There are separate drawing modes for each type of drawing in the project: One-Line, 3D Layout, Schematics (protection and control), Panel Layout, and Wiring Diagrams. These modes provide a task-based interface that changes the behavior of the software to match the current drawing type. If a component appears in more than one type of drawing, you can click on it to instantly navigate to where the same component appears in the other drawings.
Error Checking
As you create drawings, Bentley Substation alerts you to possible errors. This significantly reduces manual checking and improves the overall accuracy of the drawing, preventing costly corrections later on. Error conditions include short circuits, gaps in the circuit, duplicate device identifiers, duplicate wire numbers, missing part numbers, missing cross-references, and overassignment of contacts.
Integrated Parts Database
Bentley Substation includes an integrated parts database. This lets you associate components in your design with specific parts information and facilitates the generation of parts lists, panel layouts, and other documents. A part record can also include data on accessory parts so that a complete and accurate bill of material is generated. The parts database supports MS-Access, SQL Server, and Oracle.
Automatic Generation of Documentation
Superior documentation is provided by a project database linked to the schematic, allowing bills of material, purchase order lists, job cost estimates, panel layouts, terminal plans, wire lists, and wiring diagrams to be generated automatically. The automatic creation of documentation based on drawings and other system information minimizes errors and ensures that any design revisions are quickly reflected in the reports.
Distributed Engineering
As the design work for a substation typically involves people working at different locations, there is a need to coordinate this activity to avoid errors, delays, and miscommunication. Bentley’s ProjectWise software is a perfect complement to Bentley Substation for this purpose. It provides robust enterprise-level engineering content management and team collaboration capabilities to support the substation design workflow. Integration with ProjectWise allows many Bentley Substation operations to be performed from within ProjectWise.
The Bentley Substation Solution
Each substation design has a unique set of requirements. If your substation project extends beyond the scope of Bentley Substation to such areas as civil, structural, architectural, rail, building, and lighting design, Bentley offers a broader substation solution of powerful, interoperable products.