TRANSFORMING THREE-PHASE VOLTAGES INTO TWO-PHASE VOLTAGES
How To Transform Three Phase Voltages Into Two Phase Voltages?
Occasionally, although rarely, one still may encounter a two-phase power system that is supplied by a three-phase source. Two-phase systems can have three-wire, four-wire, or five-wire circuits.
Note that a two-phase system is not merely two-thirds of a three-phase system. Balanced three-wire, two-phase circuits have two phase wires, both carrying approximately the same amount of current, with a neutral wire carrying 1.414 times the currents in the phase wires. The phase-to-neutral voltages are 90° out of phase with each other.
Four-wire circuits are essentially just two ungrounded single-phase circuits that are electrically 90° out of phase with each other. Five-wire circuits have four phase wires plus a neutral; the four phase wires are 90° out of phase with each other.
The easiest way to transform three-phase voltages into two-phase voltages is with two conventional single-phase transformers. The first transformer is connected phase-to-neutral on the primary (three-phase) side and the second transformer is connected between the other two phases on the primary side.
The secondary windings of the two transformers are then connected to the two-phase circuit. The phase-to-neutral primary voltage is 90° out of phase with the phase-to-phase primary voltage, producing a two-phase voltage across the secondary windings.
This simple connection, called the T connection, is shown in Figure 2.17. The main advantage of the T connection is that it uses transformers with standard primary and secondary voltages.
The disadvantage of the T connection is that a balanced two-phase load still produces unbalanced three-phase currents; i.e., the phase currents in the three phase system do not have equal magnitudes, their phase angles are not 120° apart, and there is a considerable amount of neutral current that must be returned to the source.
Would a ZigZag transformer fix that neutral problem?
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