Re: Three phase transformer arrived for saturation experimentation.

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


> There shouldn't be any AC in the center windings if
> the outer windings are connected properly.
...
> That suggests that saturating
> the center leg will not translate into saturation of
> the outer legs.

This is how I see it:

If you use the centre leg as the control and the outer windings wired 
out of phase as the load, saturating the centre leg doesn't do much. 
The flux can just pass round the top and bottom of the core and the 
two outer limbs even if the centre leg is missing completely, so I 
reckon the reactor will always be fairly high inductance and won't be 
able to be "opened up" to let high currents flow.

The only way, as I see it, to use the centre leg as the control is to 
wire the two outer windings in phase, so that the flux from the load 
current is forced to pass through the centre limb. But in this case, 
there will be a high AC voltage induced in the control winding which 
can't be cancelled out any way.

I could be wrong though as I have next to no experience in saturable 
reactors :-( But that is just my gut feeling on the matter.

Steve Conner
http://www.scopeboy.com