AMERICAN UNIVERSITY of SHARJAH

Department of Electrical Engineering

College of Engineering

ELE 397 – Professional Training in Electrical Engineering

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Summer 2016

Name: Mohammed Hassan

ID: @45156

Name of the Company: AL FAIZAN ELECTRICAL INSTALLATIONS LLC

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Date Started: 24th July 2016

Date Ended: 27th August 2016

AcknowledgementFirst of all, I would like thank Mr. Salman (General Manager) for

selecting me for this internship and evaluating my performance during this internship. I would also like to thank Mr. Salman for coordinating with my university. Moreover, I would like to thank Mr.Quadri (Director) for helping me visit different construction sites to help enhance my practical knowledge. Last but not the least I would like to thank, Mr. Ashok (Design Engineer) who taught me about the drawings and the schematics and everything I need to know about the company and how the theoretical knowledge is applied practically. He also assisted me throughout the internship period and guided me.

I would also like to thank Prof. Mohammad Hasan for his guidance and support. He taught us how to research about a company and gave us lectures on our internship program. Finally I am thankful to my parents for their continuous support throughout my internship.

AbstractThe main objective of this report is to describe and give an overview of the internship I completed in Al Faizan Electrical Installation. During my internship my main goal was to understand first of all the daily operations of the company and what is expected of an engineer working in such a company. Since Al Faizan is mechanical electrical and plumbing (MEP) company they mainly deal with electrical and mechanical work during construction of buildings and villas all over UAE. Since I am an electrical engineering student my focus was more on the electrical engineering work done by the company. Although Al Faizan is small company but they are very organized in their daily operations and co-ordinations and highly welcome newcomers and students to learn and encourage them towards the field of work. So for an Electrical engineer working at Al Faizan or similar MEP companies would be to take quantities of electrical and mechanical and plumbing items required from drawing given by potential clients. Based on the f quantities taken a by the engineer a quotation of prices would be made by the project manager and sent to the client to be approved. The client normally doesn’t handle the hiring of companies for construction work rather they hire consultant companies to do their job for them. The consultant companies then hire the company who does the civil work also other companies who do the rest of the work among which are mechanical, electrical, plumbing, firefighting, elevator and AC departments. So when the price quotations are sent by Al Faizan the consultant company receives it along with the quotations from other companies alongside and they compare the prices to pick the best one or the company which can best provide them the material as per specified by the client. If the company is hired by the consulting company all the departments related to the project meet and they here the client meets all the companies who are handling the job the companies meet each other since they will be working on the project for a long time. Later Engineers at Al Faizan would have to update the drawings made by consulting firm along with the material which is suggested according to the suppliers available to them and submit for approval by the client. Sometimes the client wants a specific material which might not be available but a close match is available so before using that material they have to approved by the client. If approved by the client, then DEWA (dubai electricity and water authority) in case if the project is in Dubai will also have to approve the drawings before the workers on site can start their work. When DEWA approves then it’s a green light for the workers and they start working hand in hand with the other departments on site. Electrical wiring is normally done in phases before the civil department can put concrete on a floor. Then after completion of floors the light points and switches are installed, so a lot of work is done in phases alongside the civil contractors

and the other departments on site. After work is done finally DEWA would come and check if everything is in order and if not they specify their requirements which is then executed later and asked for another approval and after approval DEWA gives the electrical and water supply to the building. So it is evident that a lot of paper work is necessary in this process and very hard responsibility falls on the engineers who works for such companies to keep them in order, even a slight mistake can delay the project completion and a huge loss has to be taken by the firm, who is responsible for the delay. On the other hand a lot can also be learned from such environment and this report will describe everything mentioned above in details.

Table of ContentsAbstract...................................................................................................................................................3

Company Profile......................................................................................................................................5

Introduction.............................................................................................................................................7

Basic Background.....................................................................................................................................9

DEWA Regulations for selecting circuit breakers and cable sizes:.........................................................14

Different stages in a Construction Project:............................................................................................16

CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................19

Company Profile

Founded in 1980, Al Faizan Electrical Installations is one of the leading MEP (Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing) service provider and consultant for more than 20 years in the Middle East market. Having worked on numerous prestigious projects with reputed Contractors over the years, especially in the U.A.E., it has accumulated a wealth of experience and relationships which are instrumental in achieving high levels of Customer satisfaction.

Al Faizan Electrical Installations is a full M.E.P. solutions provider with an enviable portfolio of projects. It has successfully completed projects of various scales, ranging from MEP services installations for newly started small businesses and private villas to multi storey buildings, large warehouses, hospitals, factories and government organizations. Approved as an A Grade Electrical Contractor from DEWA, no job is too big or too small for them. It has witnessed and participated in developing the U.A.E. from sand dunes to silver and golden mega structures.

Their vast experience and in depth knowledge of local procedures and regulations enables them to provide wide range of quality and expert services to our Clients. Al Faizan takes Client satisfaction seriously and always keeps them first throughout the progress of Projects, from conception to completion and up to Dubai Electricity and Water (DEWA) approvals and power/water meter release.

They have been dealing with DEWA since the era of its inception and are thorough with their procedures, enabling them to getting it right the first time when it comes to MEP installations that comply with the rules and regulations prescribed by the local Authorities.

Some of their recent work is provided below:

IntroductionOn the first day, I met Mr Ahosk who is working as an Engineer in Al Faizan and he was

very glad to teach me as an intern and firmly told me about the rules and company details. I was given our internship schedule to follow. Then he gave me a short tour of the different departments in the company. He showed me how the panels are manufactured. He taught me practically how power gets supplied to the panels and the different functions of the panels. He then showed me the different forms of enclosures and also helped me to get familiarized with MDB, SMDB, MCC, DB AND Capacitor banks. Moreover, I also learned different kinds of departments that are involved in a construction project and how they collaborate to bring a fully completed building to existence. For example, there are seven main departments in a construction project:

1) Civil Contractors (main contractors)2) Mechanical3) Electrical4) Plumbing5) Fire Fighting 6) AC7) Lift

Civil contractors are the backbone of a construction project, they build all the plans for making a building and all the other departments work either hired by them or the consultant company to work hand in hand with them. They are responsible for building a building from scratch.

Mechanical department handles everything related to the water supply and all the equipment that goes into the kitchen and toilet like sinks and bathtub and most other stuff like water taps in a building under construction. They are responsible for fitting and planning on where to put the equipment and also the water tanks since water supply comes under their department too.

Electrical department is responsible of designing a building full electrical wiring along with the load distribution in the building. The department is also responsible of installing the equipment that is supposed to distribute load according to need such as MDB, SMDB, DB. The importance of each equipment is going to be covered in the next section. They are also responsible for selecting the right wires and breaker sizes which also comes under the design process and DEWA (Dubai Electric and Water Supply) has specification for selecting breakers and wire sizes in their website the contents of which will also be covered in this report.

Plumbing department is responsible for handling all the drainage and piping for drainage material in the building including the manhole covers and gully taps and materials related to drainage.

Fire Fighting department is responsible for installing all the material that is necessary in a building during a fire crisis to fight or escape the crisis. It is also the responsibility of the firefighting department to consult the civil department in designing the buildings

This was just and introduction on how a construction site is managed and how all these departments work hand to hand in making a drawing to a complete building to serve its purpose that we see everywhere. Since it was an MEP company I was working in Al Faizan handled Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing all together in any given project to them. Understanding of how all this work is handled was the goal of my internship

During my internship I was assigned to work with the Engineering, Drawing, Production and Testing departments. In the engineering department Mr. Ashok taught me about several engineering aspects in the switchgear industry. Furthermore, I have also learned to analysis several project drawings. How the company is approached for a project and how every project is handled at different stages was also some of the concepts covered during my internship.

Basic Background

To work in a MEP company it is very important to know the basic concepts and the functions of a few things listed below:

Electrical Engineering While working as an electrical engineer one must know the definitions mentioned below along with reading drawings of the floor plans mentioned later in this section.

Meter Board: power from the main supply enters at the meter board where how much of the current being consumed is calculated and then goes into the MDB.

Fig 1: Meter Board

MDB (Main Distribution Board) - its incoming is from a power supply or transformers. When power comes this panel is the place where the main load is separated into different smaller loads with a main breaker at the supply side and at every smaller load there are also breakers for complete control and safety.

Fig 2: MDB from inside

SMDB (Sub-Main Distribution Board) - It gets feed by the MDB. For a typical high rise building SMDB is very essential, since direct connection from the MBD to the DBs may be confusing and unsafe. SMDB acts as a sub distributer of load to different sections of the building form where current flow can be controlled.

Fig 3: A typical SMDB or LV panel.

DB (Distribution Board) - It gets feed from the SMDB or in case of small buildings directly from MDB. It is a distribution board that is for say installed at every floor of the building being constructed and all the small switches are breakers for the flats of the floors. Every room may also have another DB inside to control different rooms of the flat, in other words DBs are also used to separate the load power fed to it into even smaller loads and thus the wire sizes are

typically smaller than the MDB wires since they are not carrying huge amount of current as the MDB.

Fig 4: A typical DB from inside.

Capacitor banks- It stores charges and is used for power factor correction. Power factor correction for both balanced and unbalanced load. Excess reactive power reduces power quality, efficiency and production quality of plants and increases running costs. It also reduces the lifetime of equipment’s (cable, transformer) due to increased electrical and thermal stress.

Power Quality filters out the harmonics, smooth reactive power compensation and load balancing.

Poor power quality causes: Harmonic pollution Load imbalance Excess Reactive power

Fig 4: capacitor bank from inside.

MCCB (Moulded Case Circuit Breakers) - It is used for low rating of current. It consists of T-max series with top performance and size on the market. There is more space for cabling and it reduces the dimensions of the switchboard

Other Circuit Breakers

ELCB-Earth leakage Circuit Breakers

RCCB- Residual Current Circuit Breakers

Drawings:

Electrical part of a construction project contains three types of drawings:

Lighting Layout: A drawing made using the software AUTOCAD to display the lighting plan in a building, each floor has separate drawings.

Power Layout: A drawing to illustrate all the power outlets of the building, drawings also include all the MDB, DBs and the sockets and their ampere ratings

Telephone: The telephone layout of a floor shows all the telephone connections in the floor.

Fig 5: An AUTOCAD floor plan for power and lighting in a villa for the ground floor of the building.

DEWA Regulations for selecting circuit breakers and cable sizes:Dubai electricity and water supply has strict regulations for using size of wires and breakers for carrying different load sizes and table1 illustrates the following. Although Al Faizan completely believes in customer satisfaction but when it comes to rules they also have to abide the legal standards set by the government. The table below was extracted from the 1997 DEWA Regulations handbook publicly released by the Government of Dubai for being used in construction of buildings.

Table1: the cable sizes on the left and the breaker ratings on the second column and the load ratings on the third column specified to be used by DEWA.

Table1 specifies the specified cable areas for one core cable carrying different ratings of currents.

Fig 6: How different wires look from inside and the difference between different cores.

Different stages in a Construction Project:When someone needs to get build a building they approach a constant firm. The consultants firm then after getting all the details about the client’s requirements and budget and land details hires a civil contractor for the firm. From the civil contractor if the company is not big enough to complete all the departments in the project hires sub-contractors for the project for the departments mentioned in the introduction part of the report. But before hiring it sends the project proposal to many different firms and they respond with a price quotation for whatever part they were approached for. For an MEP company like Al Faizan they are mostly approached for their Electrical, Mechanical and Plumbing installation expertise and thus starts the different stages of the project that are described below.

Stage 1 (making quotations): When a project proposal comes the company makes and estimate of the number of Electrical, Water and Drainage installations they need to make by looking at all the respective drawings of the building done by the consultant firm. We count them one by one and make a spread sheet out of it then after the tally of the number of equipment and wiring has been made the price is estimated and sent to the prospective Civil Contractors trying to hire the company. Figure 7 shows a typical quantity spreadsheet that Al Faizan uses for office use. But the actual spreadsheet that is sent to the Client or Civil contractors approaching the company for help is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 7: A rough spreadsheet to calculate the Electrical, Water and Drainage equipment needed for a given project.

Fig8: A total of all the Electrical Water and Drainage Equipment cost along with the man power cost proposed by the Company is made in a spreadsheet like this and sent back to the prospective client.

Stage 2: If approved by the client and if the company gets a project they meet all the other representatives from companies handling other departments in the project and update the

drawings made by the consultants and get approval from DEWA or other government authorities depending on where the project is being done. In these phase if the company is certain of a product that will work best for the building under construction or in some way different from what the client has asked for need to be also approved from the client before making the final drawings and sending to DEWA for approval.

Stage 3: Hand in hand collaboration and work begins with all the other departments after getting the green light from DEWA and site engineers and technicians become active. This phase lasts for a very long time depending on how long the construction takes or sometimes the electric or other work needs to be at a halt for civil work to finish and vice versa.

Stage 4: after construction ends DEWA comes and inspects if everything is in order or not according to the plans sent before construction began.

Stage 5: If DEWA finds everything in order the water and the electric supply is provided to the building and project is completed.

Although all the work related to a construction project cannot be summarized in only five stages because this is a long and hectic process especially stage 3. And sometimes paper work takes more time than the actual construction, and sometimes approvals take even longer. So these steps are rough summary of what happens but in reality one or two steps may be extra.

CONCLUSIONAfter working in Al Faizan Electrical Installations LLC I can say that my practical knowledge of how Electrical and Mechanical work is done in a construction project has grown a lot. This one month of training has directed my theoretical knowledge into practical applications so much that I would be more than eager to join and work efficiently in any Construction based company. I not only enhanced my practical knowledge but seeing my seniors like Mr Ashok who dedicate so much time into their work life gave me new direction into how to direct my effort in the right order to get the maximum output. The goal of my internship was to get a knowledge of how work in and Engineering company is done and I can say I came out with more than what I was hoping to get from this experience.