Right-of-Way (ROWCAD)

Recent enhancements to the Right-of-Way (ROWCAD) application significantly expand modeling flexibility, improve usability, and prepare the platform for future solver development. The most consequential addition is the Hybrid Circuit Solver (HCS) mode, which preserves the familiar ROW workflow while replacing the circuit computation engine with the Generic Circuit Solver (GCS). This approach maintains compatibility with established SPLITS-based practices while removing several important modeling restrictions, improving computational performance, and creating a foundation for more general circuit interconnections and arbitrary energizations in future releases.

HCS (Hybrid Circuit Solver) input mode.

Another major advance is the introduction of native support for non-conductive enclosures, including HDPE, PVC, and FRP sleeves or conduits surrounding metallic pipelines. By representing these structures directly in inductive and total-interference studies, ROWCAD can now model their electrical effects more realistically. This removes the need for approximate equivalent-parameter methods that were previously required and improves confidence in both interference assessment and mitigation design.

Creating a non-conductive Pipe-Type Cable component in ROWCAD.

Several practical improvements also strengthen day-to-day model development. The 3D viewer toolbar has been reorganized and visually aligned with the newer SESCAD interface, making commands easier to locate and improving consistency across SES applications. ROWCAD now also provides visual indicators for polyline orientation together with a dedicated reversal tool, helping users avoid cross-section interpretation errors and improving modeling accuracy.

Additional workflow enhancements further simplify the handling of large or complex corridor models. Users can now assign no-coupling polyline segments graphically in the 3D environment instead of relying only on tabular input, making the selective removal of external mutual coupling more intuitive. The extension-entity capability has also been expanded so that long pipeline extensions with regularly connected mitigation wires can be converted into MALZ entities, reducing visual clutter and circuit size while preserving the required electrical behavior.

Taken together, these developments improve both the fidelity of physical representation and the efficiency of practical model construction. They also mark a clear progression toward a more capable and extensible ROW platform.

See the article entitled “Improvements to Right-of-Way” in these Proceedings for further details.