John Williamson wrote:
newshound wrote:

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Cheers
Adam- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If each phase was taking 100Amps there would be no neutral current
at all.
A neutral current only appears when the phase currents are
unbalanced.

Not if the OP is only using 230V appliances.

Please pay attention to what is written.

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Adam

I really hesitate to differ, but are you saying that, if each 230 V
appliance was taking 100A, there would be 300A in the neutral?

I calculate it that if you have all three phases drawing 100A, the
neutral would be carrying only stray currents, but if only one phase
was loaded, the neutral current would be equal to the load current.
With two running, it's something on the order of 1/ (square root of
2) multiplied by the combined load current, so in this case about
141A maximum with full load on two phases. With three phases running
in balance, it's close to zero. It's a vector sum, and the worst case
is with two phases running at full load, and the other one drawing
zero load. For other combinations, it depends on the loads on each
phase.

I was having a brain dead moment. My apologies to Harry.

Depending on the balancing of the system there could be a higher current in
the neutral than 100A and that is what I was thinking of.

I stand corrected. I was wrong and I admit it.

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Adam