Motor protection circuit breaker for panel integration
The Siemens SIRIUS 3RV2011-1FA15-ZW97 is a motor protection circuit breaker designed for protecting three-phase motors against overload and short-circuit. It combines a contactor and thermal-magnetic overload relay in one compact unit, sized at 45 mm wide and 97 mm deep for DIN-rail panels. Rated breaking capacity hits 100 kA at 400 V, meaning it can safely interrupt high-fault-current faults upstream without cascading damage to downstream equipment. The Trip Class 10 characteristic means it trips within 10 seconds at 7.2× rated current — standard for protecting standard induction motors during locked-rotor conditions. Phase failure detection is built in, so a lost phase on the supply side will trip the breaker before the motor single-phases and burns out. Ground fault detection is not included — if that's required, an external ground-fault relay or a different variant is needed.
Mounting and wiring constraints
Mounts on 35 mm DIN rail per DIN EN 60715 via screw and snap-on — no adapter plate needed. Any mounting position allowed. Clearance requirements: 50 mm upwards and downwards, 30 mm at the side, 0 mm forwards and backwards — so it can sit flush against the back panel, but leave breathing space above and below for arc chute venting. Main contact terminals accept 2×(0.5...1.5 mm²) or 2×(0.75...2.5 mm²) solid or stranded wire, screw type M3. For a typical 1.5 mm² motor feed, that's two wires per terminal — useful for daisy-chaining control power or looping through auxiliary contacts.
Breaking capacity and short-circuit coordination
The 3RV2011-1FA15-ZW97 delivers 100 kA at 400 V and 500 V, dropping to 4 kA at 690 V. Compare this to the 3RV2021-1FA15, which is a physically larger frame (wider) with higher continuous current ratings — the 3RV2011-1FA15-ZW97 fits where panel space is tight but fault levels are still high. At 480 V and 600 V the rated current is 5 A, so this variant is sized for smaller motor loads up to about 0.5 hp at 230 V.