Optimization of tubular rigid bus design substations

The authors summarize a rigid-bus design procedure and present a model for optimization of the rigid-bus design process. The computer program BUSOPT (developed by Ontario Hydro) can perform an optimal selection of conductor parameters, interphase spacing, and span length. The buses can be selected either from the set of standard sizes stored in the program's library or the program can compute the optimal bus dimensions. A calculator mode allows quick analysis of various aspects of the design process. The program has a user-friendly format with context-sensitive help and can be executed on IBM-compatible personal computers. The station design process is complex, and the resulting optimization problem is highly nonlinear. An efficient and robust optimization algorithm has been developed to perform the calculations. In the calculator mode, existing station designs can be checked and the parameters requiring improvements or modifications can be easily identified