Case Study #013: The Current In a 3-Phase Band Heater

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The Current In a 3-Phase Band Heater

We had a call from a customer questioning how to calculate what the current would be for each wire in 3-phase band heater. Here is the band heater breakdown: 480V, 3,000W, 3-phase. The heater looked something like the diagram you see below.

Diagram of Thermal Corporation 3-phase band heater

Inside this heater, it was wired in a “wye” configuration. The wye configuration wiring diagram would look like:

diagram of a wye wire configuration inside the 3-phase band heater

The resistance of each winding card inside the heater is equal, giving us a balanced load. Therefore, each phase will handle 1/3 of the load. 1/3 of 3,000W is 1,000W.
480V is the voltage between the 3 phases (line to line). The voltage between any phase and the ground (line to ground) is:

480V divided by square root of 3 equals 277V

Now that we know the wattage and voltage in each leg of the 3-phase power, we can calculate the current.

Current = Watts / Volts = 1,000W / 277V = 3.6 Amps in each leg

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Written by Jim Dixon
Edited by Shelby Reece and Kyle Otte
Date Published: 10.07.2019
Last Updated: 10.08.2019