Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to this DEMPLAN tutorial. Today I will show you how to set up equipotential bonding areas in DEMPLAN.

You can use them, for example, to simulate multiple floors in a tall building.

To this end, I have already prepared a building with a height of 20.5 m and an earth termination system as per DIN 18014.

The easiest way to create a potential area is to create a ceiling area in the model and later designate it as an equipotential bonding area.

To do this, we select floor plan in the toolbox, then ceiling and use the outline tracing.

We add a ceiling to the floor slab, which we can then duplicate.

For easier editing, we switch to the side view.

Right-clicking on a ceiling opens the copy command.

We place the ceiling there, where we want to have the equipotential bonding areas.

The elevation can be adjusted in the properties windows on the left.

Let's, for example, select the heights 5, 10, 15 and 20 m.

When setting the height, the test joint height must be taken into account so that the separation point is not above the building.

If, as in this example, we want to depict an equipotential bonding area half a meter below the roof surface, the test joint should be smaller than 50 cm.

We can check the height of the joint by going to the lightning protection options.

We can see the distances in the general tab under distances.

Let's change the 80 cm set here to 30 cm for our examples.

Now we select the ceiling with a right-click and assign equipotential bonding level.

Then we right-click on the ceiling a second time and select equipotential level again.

A window opens where I can make the settings for the equipotential bonding area.

You can choose whether to add a test joint or an earthing bar in the general settings.

The mesh size for the equipotential bonding area can be selected under options.

We recommend a mesh size of 5 by 5 m. This is the default setting.

However, it is possible to adjust these values as well as the material and type to meet your own requirements in the same way as we do it when creating an earth termination system.

Special attention should be paid to the reference for separation distance calculation options and the note there.

If this option is selected, the level is set to zero regardless of whether it is connected to an earth termination system in the program or not.

The normative requirements as described must therefore be taken into account if this option is to be used.

We complete the assignment of equipotential bonding areas for the remaining ceiling slabs.

In this case, we can delete the boding ceiling slab.

If we hide the building and ceilings, we see the insurgent lightning protection material.

Next, we change to the isometric view and put a mesh on the roof.

To connect the mesh and the equipotential bonding area, we select the icon Add Mesh Down Conductor and determine the position of the down conductor.

The green area determines how far the down conductor is routed.

We can have it terminate at an equipotential level or the earth termination system.

A window opens where we can select whether or not all relevant equipotential bonding areas should be connected.

If we press Yes, we see that the equipotential bonding areas above the endpoint have been taken into account.

To see this better, we hide the building parts again and perform a separation distance calculation.

We see the current distribution for each floor and the different sizes of the separation volume cylinders.

You can find more tutorials and news about DEMPLAN on our e-learning platform.

Thank you and see you next time.