Scotland’s premier water project goes for Hensel electrics 31 May 2011

Engineers working on Glencorse water treatment works, for Scottish Water, have installed over 400 top of the range electrical enclosures and junction boxes from Hensel.

Glencorse is a greenfield development project and will soon be supplying 70% of Edinburgh's drinking water – replacing two ageing plants, Alnwickhill and Fairmilehead.

"This is a very important project for Scottish Water," says Garry Hall, engineering manager of Field Systems Designs, the electrical engineering company installing lighting and cabling the process drives and instrumentation at Glencorse.

"It was essential that we installed only the best equipment and worked to the highest standards so that we can be sure of long-term reliability," he adds.

Katherine Beddard, FSDL project engineer for Glencorse, classified the junction boxes by size and configuration, including IP rating requirements.

"We were concerned with the IP rating and impact resistance, as some installation points were outside and in harsh environments," she explains.

"Delivery is always an issue on big projects, so we focussed on companies that had engineering capacity in the UK," she continues. "I realised that ease of installation – and subsequent maintenance and reconfiguration – would be key considerations. It was also clear that steel wire armoured glands would be used extensively on-site."

Beddard says that FSDL's electricians frequently complain of a lack of glanding space with off-the-shelf boxes normally supplied, as the spacing between glands increases resulting in a number of the cable entry knockouts unusable.

"I suggested we went with the Hensel DK range and used a larger than normal spacing for the knockouts into which the glands would be mounted," says Beddard.

DK cable junction boxes are to a solid, modern design, and halogen- and silicone-free, so met the environmental specifications. Meanwhile, stainless steel quick fastening screws and vibration tolerant terminals make them suitable for challenging sites, assisted by the IP54, 55 and 65 ratings.

"We've previously used DK in really demanding applications – offshore, underground, trackside, in chemical works and power stations," comments Hall, "so we are confident they can stand up to most things."

"On a prestigious job like this you want to walk away from an installation that looks good as well as functionally correct. The fact that we could customise each box in terms of knockout size and position makes the end product look really professional," he concludes.

Brian Tinham

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Scottish Water

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