What is the difference between Neutral line and Ground line?

Neutral is the common point of  3-phase Wye connection among main stator winding of Generators and Secondaries of power transformers but it is connected to ground to prevent floating of this neutral point that might cause looping of undesired large currents when the system becomes much unbalance and that can cause burden and damage to winding coils and cable conductors.

Ground is the earth that we wire and connect to all equipment enclosures for safety.

Simply speaking - Neutral is the return path ie, the path required to complete the circuit. When a switch is put ON, the circuit is being completed through this Neutral.

Ground is the path to the earth and is also known as Earth. This is provided for purpose of safety so that any inadvertant  eventualities such as leakages, short circuits etc; can safely pass on to the ground without causing risk to men and material. 

Inshort and easy ......

The Neutral line (System Grounding) which comes with Single/Three-phase electrical systems (windings of the transformers or generators)  and to be connected as directly as possible to the grid or grounding electrode, and be routed separately from equipment grounding connections.

The Ground Line (Equipment Grounding) exposed non–current-carrying metal parts of fixed equipments to be connected to the grounding electrode/grid minimum at one end.

 

For single phase (house service) that uses1 Phase:  the neutral wire is the wire that the electricity flows through once a circuit is completed. Like turning on your TV, the current will flow from the source (hot wire which is normally Black) to your TV then the current flows back through the Neutral to your house panel. That is, the neutral has no electricity flowing through it until electricity is flowing through some device and back out to your circuit breaker. The "neutral" and the "earth ground" wire are connected together at the household's circuit breaker panel and both are connected to a ground rod near the utility meter

 

The ground normally carries no current. Its purpose is to provide an emergency path for any accidental contact between a hot wire in an appliance and the metal parts of the appliance that the user may come in contact with.

 

Neutral is the return path for the current in the circuit. if there is no neutral in the circuit then no device will work, since there is no closed path for the current and no device will work, since there is no return path for the current through the device. whereas ground is the path for leakage currents, fault currents, and unbalance currents. it will protect the system from faults and disturbances.

-Nutral to complete the electrical circuit

-Ground for safety in case of over load or so..

We have several eschematic conections, it´s real that some times we can have ground and neutral line conected to the same point in the supply. another case is to connect gronds and neutral lines to the same point with an equipotential conection, this is not a secure configuration.

 

The securest configuration is having separated conections for neutral line and equipotential ground network which includes own steel-copper electrodes totally separated of neutral cable.

 

By neutral cable should return current from lines and ground network should protect against defect currents in the full installation

Ground line used for save the whole system from the dangerous voltage. neutral line used in Three phase sysytem for alternative current

Neutral is a return path to complete the electrical circuit in star phase., whereas grounding is a different subject for safety purpose in case of power generating equipments as well as the equipmets which is used in load side also.