Rectifiers

Introduction
• Electric energy is available in homes and industries in India, in the form of
alternating voltage.
• The supply has a voltage of 220 V (rms) at a frequency of 50 Hz. In the USA, it is
110 V at 60 Hz.
• For the operation of most of the devices in electronic equipment, a dc voltage is
needed. For instance, a transistor radio requires a dc supply for its operation.
• Usually, this supply is provided by dry cells. But sometimes we use a battery
eliminator in place of dry cells. The battery eliminator converts the ac voltage into
dc voltage and thus eliminates the need for dry cells.
• Nowadays, almost all electronic equipment's include a circuit that converts ac
voltage of mains supply into dc voltage. This part of the equipment is called
power supply.
• In general, at the input of the power supply, there is a power transformer. It is
followed by a diode circuit called rectifier.
• The output of the rectifier goes to a smoothing filter, and then to a voltage
regulator circuit. A block diagram of such a power supply is shown in Fig. 4.11.
The rectifier circuit is the heart of a power supply.
Half-Wave Rectifier
• The unidirectional conducting property of a diode finds great
application in rectifiers. These are the circuits which convert an ac
voltage into dc voltage.
• Figure 4.12 shows the circuit of a half-wave rectifier.
• Most electronic equipment's have a transformer at the input. The
transformer serves two purposes.
• First, it allows us to step the voltage up or down. This way we can get
the desired level of dc voltage. For example, the battery eliminator
used with a transistor radio gives a dc voltage of about 6 V.
• We can use a step-down transformer to get such a low ac voltage at
the input of the rectifier. On the other hand, the cathode-ray tube
used in an oscilloscope needs a very high dc voltage of the order of a
few kV. Here, we may use a step-up transformer.
• The second advantage of the transformer is the isolation it provides
from the power line. It reduces the risk of electrical shock.
• In Fig. 4.12, the diode forms a series circuit with the secondary of the
transformer and the load resistor RL· Let us see how this circuit
rectifies ac into dc.
• The primary of the transformer is connected to the power mains. An
ac voltage is induced across the secondary of the transformer.
• This voltage may be less than, or equal to, or greater than the primary
voltage depending upon the turn ratio of the transformer. We can
represent the voltage across the secondary by equation
𝑣 = 𝑉𝑚 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜔𝑡
• Figure 4. l3a shows how this voltage varies with time. It has alternate
positive and negative half-cycles. Voltage 𝑉𝑚 is the peak value of this
alternating voltage.
• During the positive half-cycles of the input voltage, the polarity of the
voltage across the secondary is as shown in Fig. 4. l 4a. This polarity
makes the diode forward biased, because it tries to push the current
in the direction of the diode arrow.
• The diode conducts, and a current 𝑖𝐿 flows through the load resistor
𝑅𝐿 . This current makes the terminal A positive with respect to
terminal B. Since a forward-biased diode offers a very low resistance,
the voltage drop across it is also very small (about 0.3 V for Ge diode
and about 0. 7 V for Si diode). Therefore, the voltage appearing across
the load terminals AB is practically the same as that the voltage 𝑣𝑖 at
every instant.
• During the negative half-cycle of the input voltage, the polarity gets
reversed. The voltage v tries to send current against the direction of
diode arrow. See Fig. 4.14b. The diode is now reverse biased. It is
shown shaded in the figure to indicate that it is non-conducting.
Practically no current flows through the circuit. Therefore, almost no
voltage is developed across the load resistance. All the input voltage
appears across the diode itself. This explains how we obtain the
output waveshape as shown. in Fig. 4. 13b.
Peak inverse voltage (PIV)
• Let us again focus our attention on the diode in Fig. 4. l4b.
• During the negative half-cycle of the input, the diode is reverse biased. The whole
of the input voltage appears across the diode (as there is no voltage across the
load resistance ).
• When the input reaches its peak value V m in the negative half-cycle, the voltage
across the diode is also maximum. This maximum voltage is known as the peak
inverse voltage (PIV). It represents the maximum voltage the diode must
withstand during the negative half-cycle of the input.
• Thus, for a half-wave rectifier, 𝑃𝐼𝑉 = 𝑉𝑚
Output dc voltage
• The average value of a sine wave (such as that in Fig. 4.13a) over one complete
cycle is zero. If a dc ammeter (moving coil type) is connected in an ac circuit, it
will read zero. (The de meter reads average value of current in a circuit).
• Now, if the de ammeter is connected in the half-wave rectifier circuit (Fig. 4.12), it
will show some reading. This indicates that there is some de current flowing
through the loading 𝑅𝐿 · We can find the value of this current in a half-wave
rectifier circuit.
• In Fig. 4.13b, we had plotted the waveform of the voltage across the load resistor
RL· If we divide each ordinate of this curve by the value of resistance RL, we get
the current waveform. This is shown in Fig. 4.15. Note that the two waveforms
(for current and for voltage) are similar. Mathematically, we can describe the
current waveform as follows :
 𝑖𝐿 = 𝐼𝑚 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜔𝑡 ; 𝑓𝑜𝑟 0 ≤ 𝜔𝑡 ≤ 𝜋
𝑖𝐿 = 0 ; 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝜋 ≤ 𝜔𝑡 ≤ 2𝜋

• Here, Im is the peak value of the current iL. It is obviously related to the peak
value of voltage Vm as
𝑉𝑚
𝐼𝑚 =
𝑅𝐿
• since the diode resistance in the conducting state is assumed to be zero. To find
the dc or average value of current, we find the net area under the curve in Fig.
4.15 over one complete cycle, i.e., from 0 to 27t (curve repeats itself after the
first cycle), and then divide this area by the base, i.e., 27t. We first integrate and
then use Eqs. ( 4.5) and (4.6) to find the area.
Full wave rectifier
• In a half-wave rectifier, discussed above, we utilise only one half-cycle of the
input wave.
• In a full-wave rectifier we utilise both the half-cycles. Alternate half-cycles are
inverted to give a unidirectional load current.
• There are two types of rectifier circuits that are in use. One is called centre-tap
rectifier and uses two diodes. The other is called bridge rectifier and uses four
diodes.
Centre-tap rectifier
• The circuit of a centre-tap rectifier is shown in Fig. 4.16a. It uses two
diodes D1 and D2. During the positive half-cycles of secondary
voltage, the diode D 1 is forward biased and D2 is reverse biased. The
current flows through the diode D1, load resistor RL and the upper
half of the winding as shown in Fig. 4.16b.
• During negative half-cycles diode D2 becomes forward biased and D 1
reverse biased. Now D2 conducts and D1 becomes open. The current
flows through diode D2, load resistor RL and the lower half of the
winding, as shown in Fig. 4.16c. Note that the load current in both
Figs. 4. 16b and c is in the same direction. The waveform of the
current iL, and hence of the load voltage v0 is shown in Fig. 4. 16c.
Peak inverse voltage
• Figure 4.17 shows the centre-tap rectifier circuit at the instant the
secondary voltage reaches its positive
• maximum value. The voltage Vm is the maximum (peak) voltage
across half of the secondary winding. At this instant, diode D1 is
conducting and it offers almost zero resistance.
• The whole of the voltage Vm across the upper half winding appears
across the load resistor RL· Therefore, the reverse voltage that
appears across the non- conducting diode is the summation of the
voltage across the lower half winding and the voltage across the load
resistor RL·
• From the figure, this voltage is Vm + Vm = 2Vm. Thus, PIV = 2Vm