Busduct

Bus way a good product especially if machines move about somewhat.

Really can not help you because of the lack of information. To little is known about the system you may be working on. One thing that would figure greatly in my decision. How many spare parts do you have?
If you can not find parts then it becomes not a very friendly system. I would call your local used electrical source and ask them. The name rings a bell but it is to far off for me to remember.

You can not mix and match parts in busway. The disconnects either fit or they are not used.

Has anyone done a fault or coordination study for this place?
It has been a while, I do remember that some bus ways you can install new disconnects hot and I remember some of the old ones you could not. Yep shut down the bus way to add a plug for a new machine.

brian john said:

Visually inspect the busway, megger, and IR Scan under load. There are your determining factors.

Some engineers I have worked with recommended using a maintenance torque, torque at a lesser value than the standard recommended torque for the bolts to verify there is no loose hardware.

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Bus duct can't be IR scanned, period. No way to do it. You can't expose the joints because of the way it's built and here are joints everywhere. That's the fundamental problem with this stuff. Bus duct gets loose connections and eventually blows itself to pieces at that point. Bus plugs on some designs are also notorious for arc flashes when they also get loose and explode. Megger readings only detect contamination on the insulation, but doesn't tell you anything about loose joints.

As to torquing, the one and only time that torque can tell you anything about a connection is at the time the nut is first tightened. Even minutes after it will be looser. Try this. Take a bolt and purposely tighten it to spec in the shop. Then come back the next day and try to tighten it again. It will ALWAYS be looser but the proper torque was present at the beginning and all you are doing is overtightening it, leading to failures. Look on the web site boltscience. They have a ton of information on why torque testing is at best a joke.

So that's the reason you hear negatives about bus duct. There are places for using it but for permanent connections it's a bad idea. Best to just run cables or open bus bars.