Miner & Miner Further Enhances Designer
With Improved Engineering Calculations
Miner & Miner Brings Advanced Design and Analysis Capabilities to the Desktop
Fort Collins, CO -- Miner & Miner Consulting Engineers, Inc. (M&M) announces the enhancement of the engineering calculation tools for its integrated design solution – Designer.
Miner & Miner’s Designer is an extension to ArcFM that utilizes the ArcGIS 8.1 architecture. It is a framework for work order design integrated with Work Management or Enterprise Resource Planning systems (WMS/ERP). Designer provides an integrated environment for preparing construction work sketches, job cost estimates, and an automated means to update the baseline corporate GIS database.
Designer supplies the design engineering functions and compatible unit (CU) data structures by interfacing with a work management/ERP system. Designer has been built to support an integrated workflow, and to make data maintenance a part of the business process. Now, Designer also includes a variety of functions to optimize designs, including engineering calculations and automated layouts.
Standard engineering calculations allow designers to determine pole strength and analyze guying and anchor needs on both existing and newly designed facilities. The Structural Analysis calculations utilize pole height, class, material, conductor spans, and guy lead lengths to dynamically display load calculations such as wind moment, maximum resisting moment, transverse load, and total bending moment. Secondary Circuit Analysis provides voltage and capacity calculations for secondary electrical networks.
The latest Designer 8.1.3 release adds a breadth of new calculations, and added functionality. “These calculation tools allow the enterprise to standardize designs and improve business operations,” said Jeff Meyers, M&M's President. “The goal is to make it easy for design technicians and job planners to make the right engineering decisions, by giving them easy access to engineering calculations in their integrated design layout environment.”
The new calculations include:
- Conductor clearance calculations based on the National Electric Safety Code (NESC) and Rural Electric Association (REA) clearance standards. Users can select a predefined clearance standard (NESC, REA) or add their own business-specific standards to the database.
- Pin and insulator analysis allows the selection of the best insulator and pin assembly, based on the total load exerted by the conductor. The user may also right-click on the conductor and select a different pin or insulator from a drop-down list showing only those pins and insulators that meet the loading requirement.
- The soil and anchor analysis tool allows the user to select the best guying anchor based on soil conditions and forces on guys. It also allows the user to change the anchors used for each guy, based on an appropriate drop-down list that is filtered on the basis of soil conditions.
- Bisector guying calculations combine pole loading and guying calculations. Users can select from various guy properties when determining how to analyze the load on poles with attached conductors. They can design pole assemblies by identifying an anchor of appropriate capacity from a list based on load calculated using pole class, conductor length, angle, and soil type.
- Secondary Circuit Analysis enhancements display transformer impedance values in a convenient form, and allow the user to save specific transformer configurations.
- A customizable transformer database is now used to supply the electrical properties of transformers. GIS attributes of transformers are used to select appropriate entries from the database when loading the circuit model with features from a GIS design sketch.
- Calculated voltages can now be reported in any of four formats at the user’s option: Volts, percent of base voltage, percent deviation from base voltage, and per unit.
- Data entry for transformers has been simplified. Users can search for and select entries from the transformer electrical database, or else supply custom definitions including impedance range (in percent), nameplate KVA and phasing.
All calculations and wizards are written as external extensions so users may configure, add, and remove them according to business needs.
“The combination of the new analysis tools and performance enhancements provide the utility designer with a fast, easy and robust method to produce consistent, low cost designs, in an integrated, user-friendly environment,” said Mike Daniels, M&M’s VP of Product Development. “This will allow the utility to better utilize its investment in design resources, existing inventories, and GIS data currency.”
About Miner & Miner
Miner & Miner (M&M) is a world leader in the development and implementation of GIS software for utilities. M&M ArcFM Solution and extended services assist electric, gas, water, and wastewater utilities in increasing productivity, lowering costs, and improving services by allowing them to effectively manage spatial information. Founded in 1946 as a full-service electrical engineering firm, M&M has been a business partner of ESRI since 1987. This partnership has enabled M&M to become the world's leading developer of ArcGIS applications for the utility industry. M&M services include implementation and customization of software to fit the needs of individual utilities. For more information, please visit www.miner.com.
About ESRI
For more than 30 years, ESRI has been the leading developer of GIS software with more than 300,000 clients worldwide. ESRI also provides consulting, implementation, and technical support services. In addition to its headquarters in California, ESRI has regional offices throughout the United States, international distributors in more than 90 countries, and more than 1,400 business partners. ESRI's goal is to provide users with comprehensive tools to help them quickly and efficiently manage and use geographic information to make a real difference in the world around them. ESRI can be found on the Web at www.esri.com.
Designer, Responder, Conduit System Management, and DistOps are trademarks of Miner & Miner, Consulting Engineers, Inc. ESRI, the ESRI globe logo, GIS by ESRI, ArcGIS, ArcSDE, ArcFM, ArcFM Viewer, ARC/INFO, ArcIMS, www.esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.
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