Instrumentation Project Documentation & Execution

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Instrument Location Plan

Junction Box
• An electrical junction box is a container for electrical connections.
• A small metal or plastic junction box may form part of an electrical conduit (A pipe or
channel for conveying fluids, such as water/ a tube or duct for enclosing electric wires
or cable.)
• Wiring system in a building, or may be buried in the plaster of a wall, concealed behind
an access panel or cast into concrete with only the lid showing.
• It sometimes includes terminals for joining wires.
• A similar container used for joining wires to electrical switches or sockets is called a
pattress.
• Junction boxes form an integral part of a circuit protection system where circuit
integrity has to be provided, as for emergency lighting or emergency power lines, or
the wiring between a nuclear reactor and a control room.
• In such an installation, the fireproofing around the incoming or outgoing cables must
also be extended to cover the junction box to prevent short circuits inside the box during
an accidental fire.
• Junction box is an enclosure used for cables interconnection between field devices and
control room.
• It encloses terminal strips for cable termination.
• Junction box shall be designed to suit environmental condition where the box will be
installed and shall have certification of Ingress Protection code and hazardous area
protection which conform to the classified area.
Junction Box consists of the following parts:
• Terminal block which comprises terminal strips for cable connections
• Gland plate (for non metallic junction box) for cable gland earthing
• An insulated earth bus bar for overall cable screen termination (optional, drain wire
could be connected to terminal strip)
• Mounting Rail complete with end bracket

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Instrument Location Plan

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Instrument Location Plan

Process Area (Instrument Location Plan)

 Instrument location plan drawings depict the location and identity of instrumentation
and control equipment and provide conduit routing and cabling information.
 The location plan is typically spawned from an equipment arrangement or rendered
from a CADD three-dimensional piping arrangement.
 Once the background is completed showing the equipment arranged on the floor and
enough steel detail to indicate location within the plant, the I&C designer layers on the
instruments and shows conduit routings and contents.
 Junction boxes are depicted, and cable routing schedules are produced.
 The graphics presentation can differ from one customer to the next, depending on
standards.

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 It shows our TK-10 product tank, a typical vessel with a level control system, fixed-
speed discharge pump PP-10, and a recirculation system.
 The pump has a HOA switch and a contact closure to provide pump status to the
computer.
 Instrument station boxes represent the instruments.
 The instrument station concept lets one box represent several instruments provided the
instruments are physically grouped.

1. Why Produce Instrument Location Plan Drawings?

 Producing instrument location plans can be an expensive evolution.
 The plan drawing is primarily used as a construction aid, not as a maintained document.
 The drawings help the constructor save more money than the engineer expends in their
production.
 Plan drawings provide a “snapshot” of the instrumentation at startup, which remains
useful as a training aid or orientation tool.
 During the engineering phase of the project, they are used as the base document for
producing bills of materials for purchasing items such as cable, conduit, and junction
boxes.
 This can save materials cost since the amount of bulk materials purchased will be closer
to the amount actually needed.
 But, their primary use is as a construction aid.
 Construction personnel find these drawings invaluable for planning and for execution.
 They greatly reduce the amount of management resources that must be allocated for the
conduit and cable installation evolution and increase the chances of having a successful
installation.

2. Anatomy of an Instrument Location Plan

• Location plan symbols and level of detail can differ from one customer to the next.
• But, they generally consist of a graphic representation of some portion of the process
floor, a component schedule, and possibly some detail sketches for clarification.

• These drawings are usually fairly large (22 by 34inches, for example).
• In general, the graphic presentation should cover approximately 50% of the drawing
area (usually the left side of the drawing).
• The scale of the graphical portion can vary widely since the only limitation is the
instrument density and level of detail.

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• The remaining 50% of the drawing area is generally reserved for a component
schedule and various notes and details as needed.

Key Components Of The Instrument Plan Drawing

 Major pieces of equipment such as tanks and pumps should be shown for orientation
purposes.
 These should be in a light line weight and appear as background.
 They should be identified in some low-key manner such as, perhaps, the vessel tag
number or equipment name.
 Instruments should be depicted near their expected final location either with bubbles or
numbered boxes.
 Instrument elevation and instrument installation detail assignments should be noted
either on the body of the plan or in the component schedule.
 Field junction boxes should be properly depicted and labeled.
 Conduit should be represented in some fashion. Conduit size should be shown,
especially at reduction points, and conduit runs (cable routings) should be tagged.
 A component schedule must provide the detail that the simplified graphic presentation
lacks.
 The most efficient way to generate the component schedule is from the instrument
database as a report, but it can be maintained in Microsoft® Excel or any other medium.
 If a database solution is sought, the instrument plan report (see the instrument database
section) can be easily modified as the drawing develops and then be pulled onto the
drawing just before it is finalized.

3. Design Considerations
During production of the plan drawing, the designer would be wise to consider the
following issues:
• Hazardous area classifications. Designers must understand the ramifications of the
area classification in effect for each process area. They must be sensitive to these
requirements when mounting remote transmitters and field junction boxes.
• Ergonomic considerations. Plant personnel must be able to transit the area, either on
foot or driving fork trucks or golf carts. Junction boxes and instrument stands should
be situated away from high-traffic areas to protect them from damage from fork trucks
or other vehicles.
• Maintenance accessibility. Be aware of any maintenance issues that might require
extraordinary requirements for accessibility in the process area. For example, a vessel
might need to be removed periodically for cleaning or refurbishing. Avoid mounting
equipment around temporary installations, and certainly avoid using any such item for
support.

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• Operational accessibility. Be aware of any operability issues that might require
accessibility in the process area. Avoid mounting equipment near vessel man-ways or
cleanouts.
• Coordination with piping group. Proper coordination with the piping department is
essential. While it is true that the instrument location plan is diagrammatic, it does not
help when pipers arrive to install a 10-inch process pipe and find a junction box installed
and already wired at that location. Rerouting an occasional conduit is to be expected,
particularly if it is a fast-track project with instrument mechanics installing before the
pipers have finished.

4. Drawing Production Technique

Following is one way to prepare a process area plan drawing with a minimum of
extraneous graphic detail, using the instrument database as a design tool:

a. Generate a Drawing Background

• The background information should appear in a very light line weight that lets the
information of interest be visually separated from it.
• Any extraneous information that is carried over from the equipment arrangements
should be deleted except, perhaps, for the major dimensioning between column lines.

Fig .1 Instrument location plan design. Step one: initialize drawing

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b.Spot and Classify Instrument Groups
As the instruments are found, their location should be penciled in as a heavy dot with
the tag number noted beside it and some indication of elevation (e.g., H = high, M =
medium, L = low)

Fig .2 Instrument location plan design. Step two: locate major equipment items

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Fig 3. Instrument location plan design. Step three: locate instrument items

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Instrument Location Plan

Fig 4. Instrument location plan design. Step four: add instrument stations

c. Build a Cable Schedule and Size the Field Junction Boxes

 Scan the drawing to find a tentative spot for any field junction boxes.
 Tabulate the cables that will probably be landing in each box in order to derive a wire
count.
 Use a spreadsheet program or some other tool to lay out the terminals.
 Consult an enclosure vendor catalogue to determine the standard backplane sizes to
accommodate your layout, and cross the backplane to an appropriate enclosure.

d. Spot Field Junction Boxes

 This is an evolution that is best done in cooperation with the mechanical engineering
department or whoever is responsible for the equipment arrangements.

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 When an ideal location has been determined based on instrument station groupings and
the anticipated size of the box is known, the junction box can be tentatively spotted on
the instrument plan.

e.Route Conduit
• If you picture a conduit run in three dimensions, it typically exits a junction box,
rises to the overhead, travels along the overhead supported by structural beams
or some other support structure, and then begins to branch (see Fig.5).
• As the branches approach instrument stations or instrument station clusters, the
conduit drops along some vertical support to the instrument station.
• When viewed from above, such conduit runs appear similar to the branches of
a tree.
• Therefore the term trunk is used to describe the part of the conduit run that is
common to all the branches.
• Branches are common to groups of instrument stations, and drops refer to the
vertical sections of conduit that feed the instrument stations themselves.

Figure 5. 3D to 2D and back

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f. Calculate Conduit Fill

• In general, a 40% area fill if more than two cables are in the conduit (see Figure 7).
• If one cable is in the conduit, a fill of 53% is permitted, and if two cables, 31%.

Figure 7. Cable area fill

• There is a cautionary note about the possibility of jams occurring when pulling three
cables if the ratio of conduit inside diameter (i.d.) to cable outside diameter (o.d.) is
between 2.8 and 3.2.

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• This jamming could occur if the conduit is deformed due to bending, thus allowing the
three cables room to “line up” in cross-section while within the bend as opposed to
forming a triangle (see Figure 8).
• In that case, the cables jam when the conduit resumes its round shape after the bend is
negotiated.
• So, if pulling three cables, try to avoid a fill ratio of between 2.8 and 3.2.

Figure 8. Cross-sectional views of cable orientation before, during, and

after a conduit bend
g. Adjust Conduit Routings for Legal Fill
 When the fill calculations are completed for each conduit trunk, the routing assignments
already established will probably need to be adjusted to accommodate overfilled (or
underfilled) conduits.
 Overfilled conduits should be split and the affected fill calculations repeated.

h. Assign Conduit Routing Numbers

 After all calculations have been made, all conduit fills are confirmed to be within code,
and conduit routings have been finalized, then conduit routing numbers may be
assigned.
 A good practice (if there is not already a precedent or customer requirement) is to use
an alphanumeric scheme that quickly indicates the kind of circuits inside the conduit
(see Figure 9).

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Figure 9. Recommended conduit tagging convention

Figure 10 shows a typical floor arrangement with conduit routing numbers added.
i. Generate a Component Schedule
 The instrument location plan component schedule is a table that provides detail
about each instrument station.

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 This table usually appears in the upper right corner of the drawing.
 A row of information is provided for each element represented by the instrument
station boxes.
 As previously noted, a single instrument station box can represent multiple
instruments.
 Therefore, instrument station numbers might be repeated several times in the
table.
 Each instrument will have its own record in the table.
 Beyond crossing the instrument station numbers to their associated instruments,
the component schedule crosses each instrument to its cable code.

Schedule
• Managing information about cabling from cabinet to cabinet or from device to cabinet
is very important to the constructor.
• It is also important to maintain this information as a permanent record in case of fire
for the purpose of disaster recovery.
• Since this type of information presents well in a tabular format, a series of tables, called
schedules.
• The schedules are most meaningful when accompanied by another tool called a location
plan drawing.

Cable Schedule
• Cable Schedule is a document containing list of instrument cable.
• Point-to-point wiring information is provided in a chart called a cable schedule.
• This document shows cable as well as gland required by each instrument or connection.
The information of the cable schedule shall consists:
• Cable Number
• Cable Type / Specification
• Cable Size
• Cable Length
• Source and destination termination description
• Cable gland type and size for each incoming cable
• Routing information is also provided in which each conduit and/or cable tray used is
listed.

Figure 11 depicts a cable (Cable W1) that is routed between a control panel (CP1) and a
junction box (JB2). The cable passes through conduit to a cable tray system. It then transits
back to conduit, and on to JB2.

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Figure 11. Defining the cable route (wire W1, Route C1/T1/T2/C2/C2a)
Purpose of Cable Schedule
• Cable schedule is a reference in preparing Material Take-Off of cable for
procurement.
• Cable length shown on this document are approximate only.
• Therefore, there should be contingency for material procurement to allow spare for
cable cutting, unexpected barrier in the field, riser, etc.
• Cable schedule will be referred also during construction phase, however it is not
recommended to cut the cable based on the length information stated on the cable
schedule.
• For actual cutting during installation, the common practice is to pull the cable from
its drum and cut in the field.
 Figure 12 shows a record in the cable schedule for cable W1 shown in Figure 11.
 Drawing numbers are omitted here, but should be provided on both the source and
destination.
 Note that the routing code (C1/T1/T2/C2/C2a) includes the entire path of the cable
through each conduit and tray leg.

Figure 12. Sample cable schedule

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b. Conduit and Tray Schedule
 The conduit and tray schedule is a chart that lists each conduit section and provides a
cross-reference to the cable schedule by listing each cable that it contains.
 The results of the fill calculation should be listed here, along with any associated
drawing numbers.
 Physical location could also be added to this schedule.
 Figure 13 shows two of the conduits in Figure 11. Conduit C2 contains three cables at
a 25% fill, while conduit C2a contains only a single cable (W1).

Instrument Cable Layout

• Instrument Cable Layout shows routing of instrument cables according to plant or
platform layout.
In addition, instrument cable layout shows the details related to instrumentation cable such
as:
• Location of field devices to be wired
• Location of junction box
• Cable number
• Cable going up/down
The purpose of instrument cable layout
• Instrument cable layout together with interconnection block diagram are to be used as
a reference for preparing instrument cable schedule in determining the following:
• List of the cable required and its length
• The point of source and destination of cable end connection
• Instrument cable layout is also a reference to identify the existence of all instrument
cables in the plant or platform.

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Instrument Cable Layout Symbols

Instrument Interconnection Block Diagram

• Interconnection block diagram is a drawing showing interconnection between each
device including instrument, junction box, marshaling cabinet, panel, etc.
• This drawing can provide a glance view of overall connection of system.
• Some interconnection block diagrams provide detail information start from every field
instruments up to control system.
• In larger project, this interconnection block diagram shows only from junction box /
package system to main control system while the connection from junction box to
each instrument is shown in junction box wiring diagram.
• Interconnection block diagram should also indicate cable number of each cable
connecting two devices.
The Purpose of Interconnection Block Diagram Drawing

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• As a reference for preparing junction box wiring diagram/ connection list and
marshaling cabinet wiring diagram which both subsequently are required for
preparing instrument loop diagram.
• Together with instrument cable layout, this drawing is also used as a reference for
preparing instrument cable schedule.

Air Header
• An air header for an industrial air filter, said air header including a generally flat surface
which comprises means for mounting a first row of valves and a second row of valves
extending longitudinally along a length of said surface, said first row of valves being
offset laterally and longitudinally staggered from said second row of valves.

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