Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Three-phase current flow

Three-phase current flow

Original - Current flows from a three-phase generator on the left, represented as three wye-connected single-phase sources, via a transmission line into a symmetric wye-connected load on the right. The phases have been arbitrarily coloured red, green, and blue. The angular separation between the phases is 120°, or 2π/3 radians. At any point along the transmission line, the net flow is zero at all times during the cycle. The neutral circuit, which would connect between the centre wye points of generator and load, has been omitted. In a balanced system, it would carry no current. The phase sequence is red→green→blue, indicated by the order in which current flows into the three loads in turn.

Reason

Elegant illustration of a somewhat difficult to understand electrical theory.

Articles this image appears in

Three-phase electric power

Creator

User:BillC

Thanks very much for the nomination. The image does scale, as it has been here, but it is best seen at its native size, as in the article, or its image page. — BillC ^talk 01:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support as nominator Cacophony (talk) 00:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support Looks cool and informative. What are the circles with the 's' shape and the rectangles? Suggest making a label or mention in the caption. Also suggest trimming down the suggested caption (of course keeping the full caption on the image description page) and perhaps our image creator could upload to commons and use {{Information}}. The shortened caption could mention what the purpose/use is. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 03:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• AC generator and resistive load (i.e. your appliances) respectively. MER-C 06:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose in current form - It looks good but, although I know what this means it is unclear. I've just shown it to a few others and it gives the wrong impression. As it is the 3-phase line looks like the red phase only. Would be much better with the generator/load in the same place/same display but the loads blue/red/green - equally spaced and at the top above the level of the load. This would make it clear that the tranmission line is all-three phases and that the captions for the load and generator do not refer to the blue phase. I think this would also show the phase changes in transmission better - Peripitus (Talk) 09:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Gives the false impression that the speed of the current changes. --Janke | Talk 13:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I agree. Current doesn't have a speed, let alone one that either varies or is constant. Charge does, however, and its speed does vary in an alternating field, which is what the diagram is representing. In a idealised conductor, the density of free charge, i.e. that available to form a current, is a constant. When an electric field is applied to that charge, it will experience an acceleration of a = qE/m, where q and m are the electronic charge and mass respectively. Since the strength of E is varying sinusoidally, so does a and so therefore does the velocity, and displacement, of the charge. — BillC ^talk 13:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The caption doesn't mention charge at all, only current "flow". See what I mean? --Janke | Talk 09:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support Highly illustrative, if a bit confusing. --Sharkface217 02:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Nobody is going to learn 3-phase power from looking at this animation. It's just too complex --ffroth 16:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose As someone who knows what 3 phase electricity is, i find this diagram extremely confusing. Seddon69 (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Any suggestions on how it could be improved? Cacophony (talk) 21:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Not promoted MER-C 02:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)