ICEA P-54-440 Standard

Tray Configuration Options & Dimensions

Tray Configuration Options and Dimensions

• Top Cover
• Bottom Cover
• Cumulative Effect - correction factors for combinations fire protection and tray covers
• Height of the cable tray
• Width of the cable tray

Temperature Correction

The cable ampacity assessment program calculates the derated ampacity based on the ambient and conductor temperatures. In addition, the user can either select the base temperature provided by the manufacturer or the operating temperature of the cable.

• Base Ambient Temperature
• Base Conductor Temperature
• Operating Ambient Temperature
• Operating Conductor Temperature

Cable Fire Protection

ETAP's cable ampacity assessment software tool offers a selection of fire protection layers available in the ETAP extensive Library. The cable ampacity calculation module of ETAP provides the following cable fire protection options:

• Fire Coating
• Fire Stop
• Fire Wrap

Alert for Allowable Ampacity

ETAP provides alerts to the user when a critical situation occurs such as overloading. A critical situation may deteriorate the cable and tremendously reduce its lifetime. The alerts in ETAP can be based on the options listed below.

• Based on the calculated Derated Ampacity
• User-Defined value
• Based on thermal analysis results of underground raceway systems module

Cable Ampacity Calculation Method

The cable ampacity calculation method based on ICEA P-54-440 applies to cables in aboveground trays using calculated derating factors based on tray size, cable fill, and environment conditions.

The actual values of tray depth, width, and % fill entries will be taken into account, which gives more accurate results. 

In addition, if both the ambient temperature and conductor temperature differ from those shown in the ICEA standard, the resulting cable ampacity values may be smaller because the standard used the product of both correction factors as the temperature correction.

In ETAP cable ampacity calculations, the ambient temperature and conductor temperature values are used directly in the calculation and, therefore, yield more accurate results.