Equipment can be modelled in Neara via the Equipment library, accessible from the main Library menu. Once created, equipment can be attached to poles or beams within an assembly.
Library
The library allows Equipment to be modelled, such as street lighting, pole-mounted transformers, load break switches and drop out fuses.
General
This section has the overall fields for the Equipment
Field | Description |
Key | Label of the Equipment |
Mass | Mass of the Equipment |
Wind Area | Wind Area of Equipment (this wind area will apply irrespective of the wind direction) |
Attachment Point | The place where the equipment connects to the pole |
Tags | Tags that can be added to the Equipment |
Attachment Point
The Attachment Point defines where equipment connects to the pole or beam. It is represented by a circle with a cross, as shown below.
Equipment will only ever connect to a pole at a single point. In the example, the top brace connection is therefore shown for visualisation purposes only and does not transfer any load onto the pole.
Parts
Equipment is made up of one or more parts. The fields for each part are described below, and each part also has Copy Part and Remove Part buttons underneath.
Field | Description |
Label | Label of the part |
Position | This is the position of the centroid of the part |
Orientation Angles | Allow for yaw, pitch and roll |
Type | Options are |
Depth (X) | Depth of Box |
Width (Y) | Width of Box |
Height (Z) | Height of Part |
Diameter | Diameter of Cylinder or Post Insulators |
Engineering Model
Neara calculates the centre of volume from all parts making up the equipment. A rigid element is created out to that point, and the mass and wind load are applied there. As a result, the equipment generates a bending moment at the attachment point.
Note that the equipment weight is scaled by the Gs load factor defined in the environment, and the wind area is scaled by the Wn load factor.
For example, the model shown below will generate a rigid element extending to a point approximately halfway up the street light.
FEA model:
Adding Equipment to Assembly
Equipment is added to an assembly in the Equipment section, where the following settings are available:
Attached To — connects the equipment to either a pole or a beam
Rotation angles — rotate the equipment
X / -X / O / Y / -Y — control whether the equipment attaches to the centre of the pole/beam or to its outside face
Below is an example of modelling drop out fuses:
Reports
To generate a list of all equipment used in the model a report can be created using: Assemblies -> Equipment as shown below.
