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http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21
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http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21
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Basic Answer
Good question! In US residential wiring, you have 3 wires feeding your home off the transformer: two hots and neutral. The transformer is a 240V center tapped transformer. The neutral is the center tap. Well, that's all fine and good, but your probably asking "what does that mean?" right about now. Well, since the transformer is 240V, you have 240V in between the two hots. The center tap divides the transformer winding in the middle. So between either hot and neutral you get 120V. Neutral is kind of a return wire for 120V circuits. (I say "kind of" because this is AC, current is flowing in both directons.) Well, why is it called neutral, then? At your main service panel a fourth wire comes into play: ground. Ground is simply a heavy safety wire that goes to a 8ft long copper rod driven into the ground. This ground wire is connected to all metal surfaces you touch (panels, screws, metal junction boxes, metal cases on appliances, etc.) In the main panel (and only the main panel) neutral is bonded to ground. So, while neutral is not ground, when everything is correct it should be "neutral," i.e. it has no potential on it.
Neutral Balancing
With the neutral you have two hot wires both capable of producing 120V to neutral. Because the hots have 240V across them (and not 0), one hot goes positive while the other hot goes negative. So, let's say you take two loads with a resistance of 60 ohms. You hook the neutrals of the loads up to neutral, one load to one hot, and the other load to the other hot. How much energy flows through the neutral conductor? 0W. This is because the load is "balanced." The amount of energy flowing through load one is equal to the energy flowing through load two. Let's do a testcase for a specific point in time. Let's say hot 1 for load one is at +60V, and hot two for load two is -60V. Ignoring load two, load one has a current of 1A (60V/60ohms=1A) flowing from hot one through the load and back to the transformer through the neutral. We will call current into the transformer on the neutral positive, and current out of the transformer on the neutral negative. So our neutral has a current of 1A on it for load one. Load two has a current of 1A flowing out of the neutral, through load two, and back into the transformer on hot 2. So, by our signing above, load 2 has a current of -1A on the neutral. To calculate the actual current on the neutral, we add the currents for the two bulbs: 1A + -
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21
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1A = 0A. Current is flowing out hot one, through bulb one, through bulb two, and back to the transformer on hot 2. Make sense? Now, let's say you have the same setup as above, only load 1 is 30ohms. Well, now the neutral has to carry the extra amp of current. The loads are no longer balanced, so the neutral has to carry the difference. At our 60V test case, the current of load one is now 2A. The neutral current is 2A + -1A = 1A. So, this means that the neutral only carries the difference in power between the two hots. This is also why your neutral doesn't need to be twice as heavy as your hots. Let's say you have 200A service. While you can have 400A of current flowing to 120V appliances all over your home, it is actually +200A to half and -200A to the rest. Your neutral carries 0A, not 400A. Let's go back to our last example, with the 60ohm and 30ohm light bulbs. Let's say some unscroupulous DIYer used the conduit the feed is in for a neutral instead of a dedicated neutral wire. Let's say a clamp to the pipe came off and now we have no neutral connection. Now, we had +60 on hot 1 and -60 on hot 2. So our loads have 120V across them. Now, in this ideal test case, our loads appear as a single 90ohm load to the supply. This means that there is 1.334A flowing through our circuit (120V/90ohms = 1.334A). This also means that load 1 us underpowered by 2/3 of an an amp, while load two is overpowered by one third of an amp. If loads one and two were lightbulbs, bulb one would be dim while bulb two would be brilliant. As both loads have 1.334A flowing through them, load one has 40V across it, while load 2 has 80V across it. Remember, at this point they are both supposed to have 60V across them.
Resistive neutrals
A resistive neutral is a nasty little problem. It has ultimately the same effects as an open neutral, but is much more subtle. With a resisive neutral, there is a connection, but it is bad. When no current is
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21
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flowing through the neutral, it appears OK. The more current flows through the neutral, the more potential develops across it by ohms law. This means that if your neutral has 25A flowing through it, and has 2 ohms of resistance, the neutral wire has 50V across it. This also means that your neutral bus in your panel is not at 0V (with respect to the transformer), but is at 50V favoring whichever load (1 or 2, as above) is heavier. This means that the lighter load will be overvoltaged. Also note that resistive neutrals get worse with time. Since our example neutral has 25A at 50V on it, it is dissipating 1250W at some point in the wire. This point is the resistive connection, and will get hot as it dissipates all this power. As it gets hot, it will burn a little further open, and the circle continues.
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First answer by TJNII. Last edit by TJNII. Contributor trust: 395 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 12 [recommend question]
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21
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What year did people start to use electricity? What will happen when 220v motor is connected to110v supply? How much does a 300 watt cost an hour in the uk just an estimate? How much does a 400watt bulb cost an hour in the uk?
Answers.com > Wiki Answers > Categories > Home and Garden > Home Improvement > Home Electricity > What is neutral in electricity? Our contributors said this page should be displayed for the questions below. (Where do these come fro If any of these are not a genuine rephrasing of the question, please help out and edit these alternates. What is neutral electricity? Why electricity atom neutral? Use of neutral in electricity? What is a neutral in electricity? What is neutral wire in electricity? What is neutral in electricityhttpwikianswerscomQWhat is neutral in electricity? About Help Center Blog WikiAnswers Anywhere Webmaster Tools What's New Terms of Use Privacy Policy IP Issues Disclaimer Copyright 2008 Answers Corporation
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_neutral_in_electricity
2008-12-21