WEBINAR AGENDA

• Cable Cleats in High-Density AI Infrastructure
• Specifying for Performance and Reliability
• Gaps in Traditional Cleat Designs
• The Value of Strap-Style Cable Cleats
• Real-World Data Center Application
• Q&A and Discussion

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Introduction

Moreno, Peter  0:06  Hey everyone, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate you making the time to attend our webinar. This is the second that we did in a series following cable cleats and some of the nuances around them. 

We have the pleasure of having this co-sponsored by Thorne and Derek, a partner in Europe. We appreciate their partnership for BAND-IT and have been working with them for decades now. Excited to continue to work with them in this space.  What we’re going to be talking about today is simplifying cable cleat selection for high-density AI power systems. Especially in Europe, these products are applicable in a wide variety of industries, with the most growth in construction occurring in AI infrastructure, data centers, and the surrounding infrastructure that supports them. So we’re just focusing in on that, but by all means, still relevant for a number of other areas. What we’re going to be going over is cable cleats in that infrastructure, what that looks like, what the installation landscape looks like, specifying for performance and reliability a little bit beyond what is the bare minimum considerations in these types of products, and then talk about some gaps in traditional cleat designs, and where strap-style cable cleats and what BAND-IT has to offer is valuable, and then also point to a real-world data center application that we had the pleasure of working in recently. So, just to introduce myself, I’m Peter Moreno, I work with Data Center Solutions here at BAND-IT, and I support our North American and European teams, as well as the Asia team in the commercial pursuit. And I’ll pass it to Paul to let him introduce himself.

Clark, Paul Good morning, good afternoon everyone. My name is Paul Clark. I’m the Senior Sales Manager for BAND-IT Europe and South Africa.

Moreno, Peter   2:19  Thanks, Paul, and I’ll let you take it from here.

Clark, Paul No problem. So a little bit of introduction of who BAND-IT are. So BAND-IT was founded originally in Denver, Colorado in 1937. So we are part of the IDEX Corporation. Currently has a turnover of around 3.3 billion US dollars revenue with above 7,000 employees. We have manufacturing facilities in America, which is where our headquarters is based, on the European operations in the UK and also in China. 

Our accreditations are ISO 9001 on the quality side, on the manufacturing, ISO 14001, which is the environmental, and also TS 16949, which is now IATF on the automotive standard. So we have representation in every geographical location around the world. 

Cable cleats in high-density AI infrastructure

So when we talk about cable cleats and what they actually do – if you look at the left hand side of the picture where you have a short circuit running through, you need to have a product that’s going to retain those cables in any such event of any short circuit. Peter and I have been working extensively on this and have been working for many, many years looking at these new applications. Where typically you would have a cleat to retain the cables, we’re looking for improving the clamping method. We’ve got a lighter duty and a faster duty alternative.

So looking at cleats through AI infrastructure, typically where you’ve got an open space, cable tray, cable ladder, typically in the grey space, which is coming from the power source, the power generation, all the way through to the what we call the white space, which is where the servers are, and the distribution panels. Anywhere where you can see the network of cables being run outside of the white space, typically that’s where you would be looking to cleat the cables to protect if there is a short circuit; the damage is contained and retained. 

It’s not just from the data centers, it’s battery storage. Where you’ve got the solar panels all the way through to the battery cells, you have the cabling system. Again, you don’t want any element of a short circuit damaging those cables. So therefore, your cables need to be retained safely and securely. Whether that’s a data center, whether it’s a hospital new build, any infrastructure on new builds, you know, certainly would use this type of application. 

Here we’ve got an image of a typical installation where you have a variety of different scenarios. You’ve got tightly condensed spaces where typically if you are having to install traditional cable cleats, you’ve got a restriction on height, on access. So therefore, looking at an alternative such as the BAND-FAST cleat that BAND-IT offers, it’s quite simple, it’s easy to install and it also gives an added benefit when you have those tight confines of space. When we’ve got heavy populated cable trays, obviously, you know, you’ve got the room, you’ve got the ease of installation, and you’ve got the flexibility of the different lengths of the bands. So, you’re not having a set cleat diameter to the cable.

Moreno, Peter  6:44  Yeah, what me and Paul were talking about a before this was, sometimes when you’re designing these systems, those teams may not have direct field experience; it can vary. Even if they do, job sites change, especially in AI where the densities are increasing so much, the technology is changing, even building to building on the same campus. It’s helpful to remind ourselves that it might look clean on a drawing, it might all marry up technically, but then you’re trying to get tooling in there, you’re trying to manipulate heavy cables, you’re trying to pull them through, add in rollers and so on, a lot of that comes into play. Even as simple as, “I have these cables, I’ve filled the tray to the max, it’s all up to spec, up to code”, but then you try and hold them together with different solutions and you find that there’s not enough space or you find that you’re reaching behind a two-foot section of wall and having some trouble there. So lets remind ourselves what the field installation environment looks like. 

Specifying for performance and reliability

Speaking more specifically about the cleats themselves as Paul has been talking about, these are the devices that secure power cables to tray, often in that open air tray. Taking advantage of being able to route power more efficiently at a higher density level than maybe some other systems, it gives you some flexibility in the way that you’re routing it, especially when we have all these equipment shortages. There’s a lot of reasons that it’s routed via tray versus other potential solutions.

Some things that need to be considered in that; you have that risk of the mechanical whipping, the electrical fault risk, also the mechanical fault risk. On that mechanical side, you could have that whipping, as Paul was showing, you could have 5 trays layered one above another, 150 millimeters apart, 6 inches apart. That whipping can cause significant damage to the surrounding cables and tray. You’re just multiplying your downtime the more that you have exposure there. In all of those factors, you want to have that protection.

In the selection of that protection, you want to make sure that you’re considering not just the job itself of the retention, but also what’s that experience like for the crew. In these projects we’ve heard anecdotally from customers of paying over 100 million, almost 200 million just to combine phases on projects. I don’t think that’s uncommon. They’re trying to go, go, go, want to get them up and running. Every day that they’re not in operation, they’re losing 10s of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of potential revenue. There’s very high incentives to meet the speed portion of the triangle as the highest priority here. That speed of installation in these cable pulls, especially when you’re doing kilometers of cables or 10s of thousands of feet in these buildings, it adds up very quickly. That’s something to consider; that actual installation experience. 

Also, like we were mentioning, the dense tray environments add to the speed and complexity;  just making sure that there’s room to manipulate (and not just enough room, but some extra room for when you have multiple rows of cables); make sure that you can work on each of them and you’re not only able to work on them when the tray is less filled.

On scale; you’re working across these massive job sites. Anything that you can do to simplify the management of materials, the management of installation elements and what you’re putting them on, anything you can do to have a universal-esque style solution that you can use on those things is going to be helpful.

So in specifying these, some of you may be familiar, just as a recap, the important elements are the most important is the peak fault exposure. What’s that available fault current that that assembly is going to be subjected to, the peak potential fault that you need to protect against. That’s going to drive the main element of the specification because that restraint needs to be certified to protect at that level.  hen that’s going to drive spacing. Oftentimes, manufacturers test to increments of spacing, so it’ll come down to, “okay, at that fault level this is the spacing that we can offer to you”. You also need to consider your cable OD, your outer diameter of those cables, and the configuration. If you’re using a traditional style cleat, those are often fixed size. If you have a trefoil or a triplexed run where they’re in that triangle formation, as you’ll see on the bottom right, then those cleats would be fixed. Or if you’re in a quadraplex, they would be fixed in that size. So that would often drive selection as you would only be able to use that shape cleat on that installation.

Similarly, with the cable OD, there’s some flexibility in the sizing, but oftentimes it’s plus or minus a few millimeters, and there’s some additional cushions or spacers that have to be added. That’s another thing that needs to be considered, as we’ll speak about in a little bit.

There’s more flexibility in a strap style solution; we’ll talk about some of those benefits. But these are some of the things that you want to think through when you’re going through this portion of your specification and design process. It’s helpful to keep this up front so that you’re not waiting until the project is going to be installed and then you’re finding problems. The crews are having to push back up via RFIs and suggestions on how to remedy the situation. It’s better to do it in the design stage and consider these things proactively as it is going to be a critical gate that you need to meet in order to move forward.

In order to help with these things, BAND-IT, we offer a cable cleat calculator. Shown here on our website, if you go to our resources tab, there’s a ability to select it and you can go through and select elements such as your peak kiloampere rating, the spacing that you want, the cable OD, and the configuration that you’re running at. That will then provide you with a recommendation on the proper product. Obviously, that’s a starting point. You would always want to have a conversation with a representative just to make sure. And then ultimately, you’re specifying that into your design, so making sure that that aligns with the intent of what you’re designing, but it does help to get that starting point for what would be a good solution for your specific project.

Here we’ll go through an example of an extreme example of what it looks like when you’re not properly spec’ed. At BAND-IT, we do testing to certify our products to the IEC 61914, specifically the 9.5.2, 9.5.3 electromechanical protection portions of that. We test our products above the threshold for what they meet so that we can study failures and continue to build out our products and develop them. Here is an example of when an improperly specified level of restraint was applied to a certain level of fault.

You can see there that it’s definitely important and extremely impactful if an event like that occurs. Most people are familiar with arc flash risk with those parts of fault mitigation, but there’s also this mechanical portion where you can have that  mechanical whipping and damage that occurs there as well, which would also contribute to additional electrical dangers.

Gaps in traditional cleat designs

As I was speaking about, this is an example of what the process would look like with a traditional cleat. With these cleats oftentimes, there’s a lot of focus on the actual installation itself, but not the cable pull. Really the cable pull is the bigger story here. When you’re installing these, a lot of times there’s the need to pre-stage these. If you have a slotted rung tray, which is very common in Europe, you may be able to directly install. If the configuration does not align with that solution, then you would need to use a bracket. Either way, you’re going to need to go in and pre-stage these.  solutions there. And then you’re going to need to pull that cable through, lift it in, and then oftentimes, depending on the manufacturer, there’s a requirement to torque these down. So you’re going to need to meet that torque spec on each of these. Then you’re going to need to lift those cables in, close the cleat, and then secure it down, and again, torque it.

There’s quite a bit that goes into it, especially when you consider what these cable pulls look like. Oftentimes they go underground, through subfloor, or they’re running up along the walls. We recently visited a site where they where they had boarded up the walls before the cables had gone in, so then they just cut inserts so that the installers could reach down in three foot sections essentially and do those installations. There’s not a lot of forgiveness for the cable pullers and installers on these sites. 

Through all that, they’re having to winch cables through. They’re often pre-staging rollers in these trays, pulling the heavy cables. It’s all worth it because they’re getting that flexibility in the design, but through all that, there is a lot of effort and work. Anything that can be done to simplify that process, if you’re having to first go through pre-stage fastening elements, then pull through and lift them into it, then go back through and have someone close them, it’s a lot of work and it just adds literal friction into the process compared to if you can do a post-pull sort of installation.

The value of strap-style cable cleats

With the strap style cleat, specifically with BAND-IT’s solution, we test for direct to rung installation. The idea there and the advantage is you can do your cable pull and then do your restraint installation afterwards. Especially where it’s more common to have slotted rung in Europe you can go direct to those slots. We’ve also recently tested where if you don’t have that, we have flexibility to do cross wrap installations, similar to what ties typically are done in, but this is still tested to the IEC. It gives you a lot of flexibility there, it’s a much speedier process.

We also have a PPA coated solution; in a lot of solutions, even if you see a strap style installation, they will be uncoated straps and you’ll have to use a rubber channel with them. For the bulk of applications, this PPA coated solution works, where it’s a low smoke, zero halogen coating, and it provides that additional protection to that edge so that when we test these assemblies in the lab, they do not damage the cables at all. You can go through multiple rounds of testing; they spray water, check for current to make sure that there’s no damage to that cable, that there’s no current escaping. And so this PPA coating adds that extra layer of protection so that solution can just be directly installed.

The result is one strap that’s holding on this cable and tested to that kiloampere rating versus using a strap and a cushion and a bracket or using a traditional style heavy duty cleat where you have multiple bolts, washers, nylon washer, bracket, cushioning, things like that. 

On speed, we’ve done some different testing here. In multiple of our tests and anecdotally from the field as well, we found that you can do up to three times as many installations with a BAND-IT’s cleat as a traditional style one. That’s also assuming that you could use power tools in that tight space. Like we were showing earlier with Paul, a lot of times you’re working in a 150 millimeter, 6 inch vertical space. It would be very difficult to get different types of tooling in there unless you’re getting specific drills with sockets and attachments that can work in that space.

At BAND-IT, we design our tools specifically to work in that type of environment, and I’ll show you a little bit about that. But it leads to the ability to do three times as many installs, which again, if you’re doing kilometers of cable or 10s of thousands of feet of cable pulls, it adds up very quickly to additional shifts, additional days-worth of work, where otherwise you could accomplish it much more quickly, which is the ultimate priority of these projects.

We have a few variations of tools that work in these tight spaces. A lot of times those trays can be mounted close together. In this image, you’ll see that the trays themselves are 190 millimeters apart, but then once you add those cables, which are quite large, and you’re working on top of them, then you’re working with even less space. So here it was 115 millimeters apart; this is our digital banding tool. This offers the ability to set a specific tension if you have higher sensitivity to that and want that ultimately consistent tension for the job site; you can set that digitally on that tool and have it work for those spaces. It also has data tracking and export so that your crews, you can ensure that that entire run was done to spec and appropriately, and then you can also have a record of that. It offers a lot of versatility there, and again, is built for that tight operating environment.

We also have a somewhat simplified version of that. Another battery powered tool that provides consistent tensioning by clutching out. This is similar to some of the other tooling that BAND-IT offers. We have a CO75 hand ratchet tool. This is essentially a battery powered version of that. This offers consistent tensioning with a little bit more of an analog style to it. If you’re not requiring that digital tracking and export, then you could go with something like this where it’s still usable in that very tight space constraints and is very portable for the job site. It limits that ergonomic strain and risk for the installers, and still is semi-economical solution for these for these types of installations.

Lastly, we also have our LokMate tool. This tool fastens our buckle ears. One of the advantages of the style of cleat that we offer, this strap, is that it uses a clip style fastening method. The advantage there is that it has a little bit of give. When those  fault events occur and the cables whip out, there’s a bit of ability for that tail to budge in that constraint style. That’s part of what allows it to survive multiple shocks. For products, you’ll put them through one level of shock and then another level. If you had an extremely static style locking mechanism, then it’s going to reach a shelf where it reaches its limit and then just break immediately.

With that style, we don’t want to require the need to tap down those ears as you would in a different type of installation environment. This LokMate tool is used to press down those ears and make it a smooth experience for installers. It has very safe edges, so it wouldn’t be damaging the cables at all. And is again designed with a handle and space considerations that would be usable within those tight vertical and horizontal spaces that these are often installed in. 

Just to show a little bit of a recap on the products themselves. Currently, BAND-IT offers strap style solutions up to 120 KA. Oftentimes, most projects, you’ll see a lot of available fault currents at the 76 or below range, and that’s where we would recommend these PPA coated single strap style solutions where they have a lot of versatility. You can go direct to rung. But some of the things that you would just want to always keep in mind, no matter what solutions you’re using, you want to be proactive about your cable tray style. So thinking about your cable pulls, when you’re ordering that tray, when you’re designing those systems, you want to make sure that you have that flexibility built in to use these types of systems and you’re not spec’ing something that you’re going to have to be modifying or being restricted to certain types of products in that tray selection.

You also want to make sure that you’re thinking about those space considerations. When you’re packing those trays, make sure that the solution you’re selecting is going to fit in that space and the installers can manipulate those cables and that fastening solution to install it there. You also want to just simplify that installation process in general. Ideally you would have a solution where you can install it post-pull, so you’re not having to pre-stage things. You’re wanting to keep it clean and neat and make sure that those cable routings are, you know, efficiently and practically installed on these job sites. 

It sounds kind of silly, but the tenants and developers will actually have quite an eye towards the perceived perception of the installation. A lot of times they’re looking for 316 stainless steel just for, you know, non-corrosive. They want everything to be triple redundant, very robust. So they want it to be clean, not just for looks, but also just because they want the maintenance and repair to be quick, easy, and efficient. In all of that, those are things that you want to consider as you’re doing these types of installations and selecting products for that. 

Real-world data center applications

Clark, Paul   27:27  With the development that we have in the Cleat product that we’ve launched, we are proven in the hyperscale data center sector. We’ve been on projects all across Europe, in Asia, and we’d like to think that we can, we are standardizing across the developer. We’re getting the product specified, it’s been put to test and, you know, it’s been a great success. We manufacture these in the UK and also in our China facility. So the lead time on these products are, you know, we can turn them around. If it’s a large scale project. This first one, we completed the full shipment within three weeks. So again, there’s no lengthy two to three months time delay on getting product to the site. You know, we work with the contractors, we work with the design houses, with the specifiers, and we also work with, obviously with our distributors in order to get the product to market and completed on the projects themselves.

Moreno, Peter   28:45  Great, thanks, Paul. I appreciate your time, everyone.