How to Calculate Transformer Turns Ratio

The alternating current (AC) in most of the appliances in your home can only come from power lines that send direct current (DC) through use of a transformer. Through all the different types of current that may flow through a circuit, it helps to have the power to control these electrical phenomena. For all their uses in changing the voltage of circuits, transformers rely heavily on their turns ratio.

Calculating Transformer Turns Ratio

A transformer turns ratio is the division of the number of turns in the primary winding by the number of turns in the secondary winding by the equation TR = Np/Ns. This ratio should also equal the voltage of the primary winding divided by the voltage of the secondary winding, as given by Vp/Vs. The primary winding refers to the powered inductor, a circuit element that induces a magnetic field in response to the flow of charge, of the transformer, and the secondary one is the unpowered inductor.

These ratios hold true under the assumption that the phase angle of the primary winding equals the phase angles of the secondary by the equation ΦP = ΦS. This primary and secondary phase angle describes how the current, which alternates between forward and reverse directions in the primary and secondary windings of the transformer, are in-sync with one another.

For AC voltage sources, as used with transformers, the incoming waveform is sinusoidal, the shape a sine wave produces. The transformer turns ratio tells you how much the voltage changes through the transformer as current passes from the primary windings to the secondary windings.

Also, please note that the word "ratio" in these formula refer to a fraction, not an actual ratio. The fraction of 1/4 is different from the ratio 1:4. While 1/4 is one part out of a whole that is divided into four equal parts, the ratio 1:4 represents that, for one of something, there are four of something else. The "ratio" in the transformer turns ratio is a fraction, not a ratio, in the transformer ratio formula.

The transformer turns ratio reveals that the fractional difference that the voltage takes based on the number of coils wound around the primary and secondary parts of the transformer. A transformer with five primary wound coils and 10 secondary wound coils will cut a voltage source in half as given by 5/10 or 1/2.

Whether voltage increases or decreases as a result of these coils determines of it's a step-up transformer or step-down transformer by the transformer ratio formula. A transformer that neither increases nor decreases voltage is an "impedance transformer" that can either measure impedance, a circuit's opposition to current, or simply indicate breaks between different electrical circuits.

The Construction of a Transformer

The core components of a transformer are the two coils, primary and secondary, that wrap around an iron core. The ferromagnetic core, or a core made from a permanent magnet, of a transformer also uses thin electrically insulated slices so that these surfaces can decrease resistance for the current that passes from the primary coils to the secondary coils of the transformer.

The construction of a transformer will generally be designed to lose as little energy as possible. Because not all of the magnetic flux from the primary coils pass to the secondary, there will be some loss in practice. Transformers will also lose energy due to eddy currents, localized electric current caused by changes in the magnetic field in electrical circuits.

Transformers get their name because they use this setup of a magnetizing core with windings on two separate parts of it to transform electrical energy into magnetic energy through the magnetizing of the core from the current through the primary windings.

Then, the magnetic core induces a current in the secondary windings, which converts the magnetic energy back into electrical energy. This means that transformers always operate on an incoming AC voltage source, one that switches between forward and reverse directions of current at regular intervals.

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