Enclosure
An Enclosure is a housing or cabinet that protects electrical components, devices, or equipment. This ensures a safe and secure environment for electrical installations and reduces the risk of accidents, damages, and unauthorized access to electrical systems by providing a safer and more secure environment. Electrical enclosures have been widespread throughout industrial, commercial, and residential settings.
Here are some key features and functions of electrical enclosures:
- Protection: The primary purpose of an electrical enclosure is to protect electrical equipment and components from various environmental factors such as dust, dirt, moisture, chemicals, and physical impact. To withstand these hazards, the enclosure typically has a sturdy construction, often made of materials like metal (such as steel or aluminum) or high-quality plastic.
- Safety: Electrical enclosures play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of people who come into contact with electrical systems. They help prevent accidental contact with live wires or components, reducing the risk of electric shock or injuries. Enclosures are designed to meet specific safety standards and may include insulation, grounding, and proper ventilation to dissipate heat.
- Equipment Organization: Enclosures provide a structured, organized space to house electrical devices and components. They often have internal mounting panels, rails, or brackets for securely attaching and arranging equipment like circuit breakers, switches, relays, terminals, and control panels. This facilitates easy installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of electrical systems.
- Heat Dissipation: Electrical equipment generates heat during operation, and excessive heat can lead to malfunctions or damage. Enclosures are designed with ventilation options such as fans, vents, or heat sinks to dissipate heat effectively. Some enclosures also incorporate cooling systems, such as air conditioning or liquid cooling, for applications with high heat loads.
- Environmental Protection: Electrical enclosures provide a barrier against outdoor elements, ensuring that electrical systems remain unaffected by weather conditions like rain, snow, or extreme temperatures. They are designed to meet specific environmental protection standards (e.g., IP ratings) to prevent water ingress, dust infiltration, and corrosion.
- Security: Enclosures can protect valuable or sensitive electrical equipment from theft or vandalism. They may include lockable doors or security features to restrict unauthorized access.
It’s essential to select a suitable electrical enclosure based on the application’s specific requirements, considering factors like size, material, environmental conditions, ingress protection, and regulatory standards.
An Enclosure, as the name hints, is a cabinet used to house electrical components, such as transformers, circuit breakers, switches, fuses, etc. Its main purpose is to protect the users from getting electric shocks due to short circuits and overcurrent conditions while protecting the electrical components from the external environment. It also keeps the electrical assembly concealed neatly for aesthetic purposes. Electrical Enclosure Boxes can be commonly found in both industrial setups as well as residential areas. Electrical enclosure play a vital role in encasing transformers and complicated electrical setups in industrial areas where there are power distribution and power control systems on large scales. On the other hand, in residential applications, Electrical enclosures are often used to protect people from any electrical mishap and household appliances from sudden power surges.
Why do we need an Enclosure?
Enclosure is an important piece of equipment for the safety of any electrical system. With the world on a technological growth spree, these protective enclosure is more important than ever. These boxes are crucial in protecting electrical networks or complicated equipment in industries such as telecommunications, IT systems, and the Internet of Things (IoT), among many others. Not only can they save lives but also huge amounts of equipment and operating costs that may incur due to damages from external factors and subsequent system failures.
- They protect people and property from dangerous electrical hazards that may occur if the electrical components inside malfunction. Due to a short circuit or sudden voltage surge, the electric current flows through the wires and causes damage to anything that comes in contact with them. Electrical enclosure contains wires and prevent any contact with external objects.
- Without proper protection, electrical components could be damaged by the external environment. If these components are exposed to water or moisture, it can lead to short circuits and eventually fires. Similarly, strong winds may damage the circuit boards, while dust may accumulate on the panels. All these external factors can significantly impact the performance of the electrical components and bring the operations to a halt. Electrical enclosure safeguards the electrical equipment from such damaging natural elements.
- Electrical enclosure keeps the electrical systems concealed and prevents pests like rodents from taking shelter in the tight spaces damaging the wiring, which may seem insignificant but may cause serious issues in industrial setups.
- Many electrical component assemblies have live wire installations, which poses a severe electrocution hazard. An electrical enclosure helps ensure safety by preventing accidental contact with these live wires.
What role does BCH play?
Therefore, the necessity of Electrical Enclosure in safeguarding industrial electrical systems cannot be emphasized enough. Considering this, making strong and high-grade enclosure boxes is crucial to ensure maximum safety.
BCH Electric Limited, an ISO 9001:2015 &ISO 14001:2015 company, is one of India’s leading and reliable manufacturers of the industrial enclosure. BCH possesses a proficient designing and developing team and state-of-the-art technology to manufacture high-end products and services.
We cater to a spectrum of industries, including Solar Energy, Infrastructure, Steel, Railways, Power Plants, Cement, Mining, Chemicals, Sugar Factories, Oil and Gas, Agriculture, and Automobiles, among many others.
BCH provides customized enclosed solutions for Industrial Enclosure apart from an extensive range of standard product baskets for modern and high-tech industrial applications.
Types of Enclosure
The electrical enclosure may vary depending on their final purpose, aesthetic factors, and location. The current industrial electrical systems consist of complicated networks of electrical conductors, connectors, receptacles, and devices, which needs protection. So it’s of utmost importance to select the correct type of electric enclosure. Its features, performance, and material may differ based on surroundings or applications.
Many influential factors dictate the type of enclosure needed for its application.
- Aesthetic purposes – This depends on the size of the enclosure needed, placement in the facility, i.e., outdoor or indoor use, and material used in making the enclosure.
- Functional purposes – The enclosure may be selected based on its purpose, which may further depend on whether it is used in industrial or residential areas and the type of industry.
- Commercial factors – Apart from its uses or features, commercial factors also play a role in selecting the type of enclosure. For instance, the cost-effective enclosure may be sufficient for optimum environments and residential complexes where environmental hazards are not much bothersome. In other places where climatic conditions are extreme or with heavy power load, electrical systems need a high level of protection with high grade and hence costly enclosure
- Electronic components – One must carefully select the enclosure type, depending on the kind of electric component to be housed. For example, if the components generate a lot of heat, the electrical system may malfunction due to overheating, causing operational failures. Therefore, an enclosure that facilitates heat dissipation is real player.
- Material Type: The material used can significantly impact the quality, durability, and cost of the enclosure boxes.
- Stainless Steel and Carbon Steel – These are durable, corrosion resistant, and moisture and chemical resistant to a certain extent.
- Aluminium – Similarly, Aluminium is corrosion resistant along with being lightweight and cost-effective.
- Polycarbonate – Another popular choice due to its lightweight and non-corrosive, non-conductive, and non-magnetic nature.
- Fiberglass – The most cost-effective choice for constantly wet atmospheres.
Considering all factors and the needs of our clients, BCH Electric Limited offers an array of the electric enclosure.
- Electrical Welded Boxes – Our signature enclosure encloses wire connections and prevents short circuits. These come in various designs: Bhartia Boxes or Welded Boxes, Terminal Boxes, and BCH SS Boxes. The enclosure is mild or stainless steel with high-grade powder coating, seamless PU gaskets, and flawless finishing. These are sustainable and durable solutions for use in many industries.
- Floor Standing Enclosure: These are highly reliable and flexible modular enclosure with single-door enclosure protection. These enclosure are most suitable for industrial automation, drives, power transmission or distribution, and special purpose machines due to their high load-bearing capacity and adjustable depth.
- Compartmentalized Enclosure: These partitioned enclosure are flexible and modular with high load-bearing capacity mounting plate and adjustable depth and come in both fixed-type and draw-out types.
- Control Desks: These offer an efficient storage option for electrical systems and controls and keep them protected in a safe, concealed environment. Control desk enclosure is available in customizable options.
- IT Racks are robust, corrosion-resistant racks for mounting critical IT systems. We offer a variety of racks, including wall mountable racks, server racks, networking racks, ETSI racks, and open racks with accessories.
BCH Industrial Enclosure provides a versatile solution for modern hi-tech industrial applications. Being robust, compact & flexible, the product ranges offer utmost safety.
Bhartia Boxes are ideally suitable for Junction Boxes, Control Panels, Distribution boards, Starter enclosure, Electrical enclosure, Electronic equipment housing, Network distributors, server and data storage racks. Bhartia boxes are type tested up to IP 66 degrees of protection and are also used in solar & wind applications. BCH customers supply Solar Pump Controllers in CREDA, MNRE, and EESL projects. BCH boxes are available in CRCA and SS-304 material and customized color options.
BCH Modular Enclosure are a highly flexible modular system for versatile applications. Ideally suited for control/Power distribution, Automation & Industrial control panels. Compartmentalized enclosure is available up to form 3b that facilitates adaptability for MCC, PCC,APFC ,PDB etc. As the name suggests, construction is fully modular and offers flexibility for flat-pack shipment. A separate robust subframe is covered with doors, and covers are protected against ingress by highly resilient foamed in PU gasket. The mounting plate with high load-bearing capacity is depth flexible.