Conduit

DHFC helps you assign one or more cables to a conduit in a trench. To do so, follow these steps:

1. In your design, navigate to the location of the trench and other underground structures. In the following image, notice there is a trench, but no RF network components yet.

   

   TIP: Do you need to sketch a trench? Use the Place Strand tool, except press and hold Shift while sketching. This toggles your tool to sketch underground facilities instead of overhead facilities. As a bonus tip, in Backstage > Settings, you can even set the Place Strand tool to default to underground facilities.

2. Use the Place RF Network tool to sketch RF components, as usual.

   

3. Using the Inspect tool, select the trench. Notice in the Component tab, because you placed the RF Network along the trench, the cable is now associated to the trench.

   

4. Also notice, in the map the cable has a dashed, gray line symbol. This means the cable is not currently assigned to any conduit.

   

5. To add conduit to the trench, with the Inspect tool, right-click the trench and choose Conduit.

6. A Place Conduit dialog appears. Use the up and down arrows to add conduit to the trench. In the following image, the user is adding a single 1.25 inch, PVC conduit in addition to a 2 inch X 4 multi-duct conduit.

   

7. In the Component tab, under Attributes, notice the Number of Ducts automatically updates to display the total number of ducts. In this example, because the user added a single 1.25 inch, PVC conduit in addition to a 2 inch X 4 multi-duct conduit, notice it displays “5” as the Number of Ducts (1 + 4 = 5).

   

   IMPORTANT:

   • The application manages the Number of Ducts field. You cannot directly edit it within the Attribute Editor. Instead, it tracks your edits as you add or remove conduit.

   • If you are wondering where the conduit gets its Number of Ducts in the first place, it is assigned within Solution Center > DHFC > Components > Conduit.

8. Under Direct Bury Cables, drag and drop the cable onto the desired conduit.

   

When finished, notice the cable’s color on the map matches which conduit houses it. This is particularly helpful when there are multiple cables within the same trench.