What it is and what it handles
The Siemens 3VA2110-5HL32-0HL0 is a SENTRON molded case circuit breaker (MCCB) built for line protection in 3-pole, 100 A continuous duty. It carries an ETU320 electronic trip unit with a shunt trip (STL) release and a full auxiliary contact set: two auxiliary switches, one trip alarm switch, and one electrical alarm switch (HQ). The interrupting capacity is the headline here — 187 kA at 240 V, 121 kA at 415 V and 440 V, stepping down to 79 kA at 500 V and 4.25 kA at 690 V. That 187 kA figure at 240 V means this breaker can safely clear a massive fault without blowing apart or welding its contacts, which matters when you're feeding a transformer or a high-fault bus tap where the available short-circuit current is well above what a standard 65 kA or 100 kA MCCB could handle. Rated insulation voltage is 800 V, so it's comfortable on 480 V and 600 V class systems with headroom to spare.
The thermal derating curve — where the 100 A holds and where it doesn't
The 100 A continuous rating is flat from 40 °C through 50 °C. At 55 °C it drops to 96.25 A, then 92.5 A at 60 °C, 88.75 A at 65 °C, and 85 A at 70 °C. If you're packing this breaker into a hot enclosure — say next to drives or transformers — that 70 °C derating to 85 A is the number you need for your load calculation, not the 100 A nameplate. Operating temperature range is -25 °C to 70 °C, storage from -40 °C to 80 °C. Power loss maxes out at 10 W, which is modest for a 100 A frame and won't cook adjacent components in a well-ventilated panel.
Panel fit — dimensions and mounting
The 3VA2110-5HL32-0HL0 measures 105 mm wide, 181 mm tall, and 86 mm deep. That 105 mm width is the standard 3-pole frame footprint for the 3VA2 series — it fits the same mounting cutout and bus-bar spacing as other 100 A SENTRON MCCBs in the family. The 86 mm depth means it clears most 200 mm deep enclosures with room for wiring gutters. It carries a voltage trigger and a trip indicator, so you get visual confirmation of a trip event without opening the door. No undervoltage release, no communication function, no phase-failure detection, and no ground-fault monitoring on this variant — it's a straight line-protection breaker with the ETU320 trip unit handling overload and short-circuit curves.
Auxiliary and shunt trip hardware
The integrated auxiliary trip is a shunt trip (STL) that ships as a separate order code: 3VA9688-0BL30. The supplied basic switch is 3VA2110-5HL32-0AA0. If you're replacing an existing 3VA2 breaker and need the same aux contact arrangement, verify the existing wiring matches the HQ configuration before pulling the old one out. Latching endurance is rated at 20,000 operations — that's the mechanical life, not the electrical life under load. For a line-protection breaker that sees infrequent switching (maybe a handful of operations a year), that's more than adequate. If you're using it as a switch-disconnector with daily cycling, you'll want a higher-endurance frame.