Rectifying circuits
The circuits which convert alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) are
known as rectifiers.
If such rectifiers rectify only half of the positive or negative cycles of an input
alternating waveform, the rectifiers are referred as half wave rectifiers.
If such rectifiers rectify both the positive and negative half cycles of an input
alternating waveform, the rectifiers are referred as full wave rectifiers.
We can classify rectifiers into two types:
1. Half Wave Rectifier
2. Full Wave Rectifier
Rectifier
Half Wave Full Wave
Semi-
uncontrolled(Diode) Controlled(SCR) Uncontrolled(Diode) Controlled(SCR & Fully-Controlled( SCR)
Diode)
Half Wave Rectifier
The diagram below illustrates the basic principle of a half-wave rectifier. When
a standard AC waveform is passed through a half-wave rectifier, only half of the
AC waveform remains. Half-wave rectifiers only allow one half-cycle (positive
or negative half-cycle) of the AC voltage through and will block the other half-
cycle on the DC side, as seen below.
1- Uncontrolled Half Wave rectifier
A Uncontrolled half wave rectifier circuit diagram looks like this:
We’ll focus on the secondary side of the circuit. If we replace the secondary
transformer coils with a source voltage, we can simplify the circuit diagram of
the half-wave rectifier as:
Case-1-For the positive half cycle of the AC source voltage, because the diode is
forward biased, and is hence allowing current to pass through. So we have a
closed circuit.
Case-2-But for the negative half cycle of the AC source voltage, Because the
diode is now in reverse bias mode, no current is able to pass through it. As such,
we now have an open circuit. Since current cannot flow through to the load during
this time, the output voltage is equal to zero.
This all happens very quickly – since an AC waveform will oscillate between
positive and negative many times each second (depending on the frequency).
Here’s what the half wave rectifier waveform looks like on the input side (V in),
and what it looks like on the output side (Vout) after rectification (i.e. conversion
from AC to DC):
Output DC Voltage
The average output voltage (VDC) across the load resistor is denoted by:
Efficiency of Half Wave Rectifier
The efficiency of a half wave rectifier is equal to 40.6% (i.e. ηmax = 40.6%)
Applications of Half Wave Rectifier
Half wave rectifiers are not as commonly used as full-wave rectifiers. Despite
this, they still have some uses:
• For rectification applications
• For signal demodulation applications
• For signal peak applications
2- Controlled Half Wave Rectifier:
A Single-Phase Half Wave Controlled Rectifier circuit consists of SCR /
thyristor, an AC voltage source and load. The load may be
purely resistive, Inductive or a combination of resistance and inductance.
For simplicity, we will consider a resistive load.
Following points must be kept in mind while discussing controlled rectifier:
• The necessary condition for turn ON of SCR is that, it should be forward
biased and gate signal must be applied. In other words, an SCR will only
get turned ON when it is forward biased and fired or gated.
• SCR will only turn off when current through it reaches below holding
current and reverse voltage is applied for a time period more than the SCR
turn off time
Well, let us go ahead with the above points in mind. Let us assume that thyristor
T is fired at a firing angle of α. This means when wt = α, gate signal will be
applied and SCR will start conducting. Refer the figure below.
Output DC Voltage
The average output voltage (VDC) across the load resistor is denoted by:
From the expression of average output voltage, it can be seen that, by changing
firing angle α, we can change the average output voltage. The average output
voltage is maximum when firing angle is zero and it is minimum when firing
angle α = π. This is the reason, it is called phase controlled rectifier.
