thanks for this wonderful article

pl help me in knowing whether voltage drop calculation for 3 ph 3 wire system and 3 ph 4 wire
system uses same formulae.
as per IEEE redbook, a single phase system uses multiplying factor 2 and a three phase system
uses multiplying factor 1.732
the ultimate representation of formula is for 3ph 3wire system converges to the one written by you,
however while calculating for 3ph 4 wire system, is it to be treated as three different single phase
ckts and use multiplying factor of 2
pl help.
for more about my question pl refer IEEE redbook 141 page no 113 or Grey Book 241 page 70-75
these describes the derivation of the formula and multiplying factors
and table for voltage drop calculation
(reply)
Asif Eqbal
Dear Mr TK, Your basic doubt is about conversion factors given after table 3-12 of IEEE red
book and after table 27 of IEEE grey book. Now the voltage drop formula which I have derived
and also given in IEEE is for three phase system and gives line to line drop.
Now there is two more conversion factor given in IEEE which looks to be your concern. Those
factors are for:
Single phase, three wire, line to line
Single phase, three wire, line to neutral
Before trying to understand this I suggest you to read in totality, table 17 and explanation in
grey book and clause 3.1.4 of IEEE red book. Single phase system is of two types:
Single phase two wire (which is derived from 3 phase 4 wire system) this system is widely used
everywhere. In India and other places domestic supply has only one standard voltage level of
240V. So voltage between phase and neutral is 240V and this system is basically called single
phase two wire. A third wire is also seen in this system which is earth but this earth is external
safety earth and not system earth hence this system is called single phase two wire and not
single phase three wires.
Single phase three wires which is mainly used as North American residential supply system. In
this system the secondary winding of the supply transformer is center tapped and earthed,
providing the neutral, while opposite ends of the secondary winding provide the two line
conductors. Loads connected between the line conductors are at 230V, whereas loads
connected between any of line conductor and the neutral are at 120 V. Do not mistake this with
a two phase system. if two phases from a three phase system are taken then with the neutral
included this would be a two phase system as the two line wire are not in phase with each
other so there are truly two phases. If however a center tap is taken as a neutral from a single
winding of a transformer feed with two phases then the two outputs are in phase and it can be
called as split phase.
Now let us consider the voltage relationship between above defined system.
1. Three phase line to line voltage=V
2. Three phase line to neutral voltage= V/3= Single phase 2 wire line to neutral voltage=
Single phase 3 wire line to line voltage
3. Single phase 3 wire line to line voltage = V
4. Single phase 3 wire line to neutral voltage = V/2
Now considering the above relationship let us come back understand the conversion factors
given in IEEE.
Voltage drop for 3 phase line to line is= x than as per equation-2 the voltage drop for 3 phase
line to neutral will be x/3 or 0.577 times x hence the conversion factor 0.577
Voltage drop for 3 phase line to line is= x than as per equation-2 the line to line voltage drop
for single phase, 3 wire system will be= 2x/3 hence the conversion factor 1.15 (for extra 2
please note that circuit length will get doubled, please diagrammatically analyze the circuit for
load connected across line in a single phase 3 wire system)
Voltage drop for single phase, 3 wire system line to line is= 2x/3 than as per equation-3 & 4
the line to neutral voltage drop will be (2x/3)/2= x/3 hence the conversion factor 0.577. Also
please note that for perfectly balanced load connected between line1 and neutral and line 2
and neutral of single phase 3 wire system this is true as there will not be any current through
neutral. However for unbalance loads between line-1 and line-2 and neutral this drop will be
more and will depend on degree of unbalance and in worst case can become equal to single
phase three wire line to line drop.
I hope this clarifies your concern. However I suggest that the other two conversion factors for
Single phase, three wire, line to line and single phase, three wires, line to neutral is not of much
practical utility for design engineer practicing in Asia or Europe where there is only one single
phase domestic supply of 240V. For 3 phases 4 wire system please do not consider it as three
different single phase circuit the 3 phase line to line voltage drop will remain same.
Your other doubt is related to conversion factor given in page 97 of red book. Conversion factor
of 2 is given for single phase and 1.732 is for 3 phase is your other doubt. Please note that
IEEE simply means here that line to neutral voltage drop for three phase system or per phase
voltage drop in three phase system has to be multiplied by 2 (circuit length getting doubled)
and by 1.732 for line to line voltage drop.
First and foremost, your article was very thorough. I went through your entire article and cannot
get the answers that you got in your comparison. The modified equation 7 seems to have an extra
X in it. However, the Exact modified formula I cannot get the same values as you and I cant figure
out why. I started on this quest because ETAP and SPEL were sizing cables 2 cable sizes off. I
realized that SPEL uses a simplified formula that assumes that the imaginary axis component of
the voltage is very small compared to the real axis. I wonder if you could double check the exact
formula to make sure it is right. Thanks for the article it really helped me!
Dear Mr Maswist thanks a lot for the careful observation.the extra X which you are
talking about is actually IXL (Current multiplied by length) as in denominator NX1000 (number
of runs multiplied by 1000) however as a representation mistake it has been represented
similar to inductance X as in XSin(phi).