The ArcFM Upstream and ArcFM Upstream Protective Device traces both trace electric lines toward their source. Multiple Feeds and Loops affect the results of these traces. This page defines Multiple Feeds and Loops, and describes how the ArcFM trace tasks handle them.
Multiple Feeds
Features that have two potential sources of electricity are part of a Multiple Feed circuit. In Figure 1, the features are fed by both DYNPROT4 or DYNPROT6 circuit source features. The multiple-feed situation is evident in that the affected features have values in both the FeederID field and FeederID2 field.
Figure 1, Multiple Feed
The ArcFM Upstream and ArcFM Upstream Protective Device traces find one path for each circuit source that reaches the flagged edge feature. If the flag is placed on an edge that is a part of a Multiple Feed, the results will include multiple paths.
Loops
A Loop occurs when a conductor feeds back into itself. In Figure 2, the Loop is highlighted in orange.
Figure 2, Loop
Loops can cause problems such as indeterminant flow with ArcMap's native tracing tools. However, ArcFM's traces (upstream and downstream) utilize Feeder Manager to identify loops in the network. If any paths discovered by the ArcFM traces contain features belonging to an electrical Loop, then all features in the loop will be included in the results.
