Power Electronics

Dr. Attique Ur Rehman

Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Recap RL Load
Freewheeling Diode

▪ Freewheeling diode is used to protect the circuit from unusual damage caused due to abrupt
reduction in the current flowing through the circuit. It is also known as Flyback diode and forms
connection across the inductor to remove Flyback voltage generated across it.
▪ Freewheeling diodes are also known as kickback diode, clamp diodes, commutating diodes, suppression
diodes, or snubber diode etc.
Freewheeling Diode

▪ A freewheeling diode, D2, can be connected across an RL load (as shown below). The behavior of
this circuit is somewhat different from that of the halfwave rectifier with RL Load.
▪ The key to the analysis of this circuit is to determine when each diode conducts.
▪ First, it is observed that both diodes cannot be forward-biased at the same time. Kirchhoff’s voltage law
around the path containing the source and the two diodes shows that one diode must be reverse
biased.
▪ Diode D1 will be on when the source is positive, and diode D2 will be on when the source is negative.
Freewheeling Diode

▪ For a positive source voltage,

▪ D1 is on
▪ D2 is off
▪ The voltage across the RL load is the same as the source

▪ For a negative source voltage,

▪ D1 is off
▪ D2 is on
▪ The voltage across the RL load is zero
Freewheeling Diode
Freewheeling Diode

▪ Complex Output Voltage Waveform

▪ Fourier Series - to quantify the performance of different harmonics
Numerical Problem #1

▪ Determine the average load voltage and current, and determine the power absorbed by the
resistor in the circuit given below, where R = 2 Ω and L = 25 mH, Vm is 100 V, and the frequency is
60 Hz.
Numerical Problem #1

▪ The Fourier series for this half-wave rectified voltage that appears across the load is obtained
from

▪ The average load voltage is the dc term in the Fourier series

▪ Average load current is

Numerical Problem #1

▪ Load power can be determined from I2rmsR, and rms current is determined from the Fourier
components of current. The amplitudes of the ac current components are determined from
phasor analysis

▪ The ac voltage amplitudes are determined from

Numerical Problem #1

▪ The resulting Fourier terms are as follows

▪ The rms current is obtained using

▪ Notice that the contribution to rms current from the harmonics decreases as n increases, and
higher-order terms are not significant
▪ Power in the resistor is I2rmsR = (16.34)2×2 = 534 W.
Reducing Load Current Harmonics

▪ The average current in the RL load is a function of the applied voltage and the resistance but not
the inductance. The inductance affects only the ac terms in the Fourier series.
▪ If the inductance is infinitely large, the impedance of the load to ac terms in the Fourier series is
infinite, and the load current is purely dc. The load current is then

▪ A large inductor (L/R >> T) with a freewheeling diode provides a means of establishing a nearly
constant load current.
Numerical Problem Half-Wave Rectifier with Freewheeling Diode: L/R → ∞

▪ For the half-wave rectifier with a freewheeling diode and RL load, the source is 240 V rms at 60 Hz
and R = 8 Ω.
(a) Assume L is infinitely large. Determine the power absorbed by the load and the power factor as seen
by the source. Sketch vo, iD1 , and iD2.
(b) Determine the average current in each diode.
(c) For a finite inductance, determine L such that the peak-to-peak current is no more than 10 percent of
the average current.
Numerical Problem Half-Wave Rectifier with Freewheeling Diode: L/R → ∞
Numerical Problem Half-Wave Rectifier with Freewheeling Diode: L/R → ∞
Numerical Problem Half-Wave Rectifier with Freewheeling Diode: L/R → ∞
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ A common application of rectifier circuits is to convert an ac voltage input to a dc voltage output.

▪ The half-wave rectifier (shown below) has a parallel RC load. The purpose of the capacitor is to
reduce the variation in the output voltage, making it more like dc.
▪ The resistance may represent an external load, and the capacitor may be a filter which is part of the
rectifier circuit.
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ Assuming the capacitor is initially uncharged, and the circuit is energized at ωt = 0, the diode
becomes forward-biased as the source becomes positive.
▪ With the diode on, the output voltage is the same as the source voltage, and the capacitor charges. The
capacitor is charged to Vm when the input voltage reaches its positive peak at ωt = π/2.
▪ As the source decreases after ωt = π/2, the capacitor discharges into the load resistor. At some
point, the voltage of the source becomes less than the output voltage, reverse-biasing the diode
and isolating the load from the source.
▪ The output voltage is a decaying exponential with time constant RC while the diode is off.
▪ The point when the diode turns off is determined by comparing the rates of change of the source
and the capacitor voltages. The diode turns off when the downward rate of change of the source
exceeds that permitted by the time constant of the RC load.
▪ The angle ωt = θ is the point when the diode turns off.
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ The output voltage is described by

where

▪ The slopes of these functions are

Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ At ωt = θ, the slopes of the voltage functions are equal

▪ In practical circuits where the time constant is large,

Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ When the source voltage comes back up to the value of the output voltage in the next period, the
diode becomes forward-biased, and the output again is the same as the source voltage.
▪ The angle at which the diode turns on in the second period, c, is the point when the sinusoidal source
reaches the same value as the decaying exponential output
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ The current in the resistor is calculated from

▪ The current in the capacitor is calculated from
which can also be expressed, using ωt as the variable, as

where
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ The source current, which is the same as the diode current, is

▪ The average capacitor current is zero, so the average diode current is the same as the average
load current. Since the diode is on for a short time in each cycle, the peak diode current is
generally much larger than the average diode current.
▪ Peak capacitor current occurs when the diode turns on at ωt = 2π + α

▪ Resistor current occurs at ωt = 2π + α

Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ Peak diode current is

Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ The effectiveness of the capacitor filter is determined

by the variation in output voltage.
▪ This may be expressed as the difference between the
maximum and minimum output voltage, which is the
peak-to-peak ripple voltage.

▪ For the halfwave rectifier, the maximum output

voltage is Vm. The minimum output voltage occurs at
ωt = 2π + α, which can be computed from Vm sin α.
▪ The peak-to-peak ripple for the circuit is expressed as
Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter

▪ In circuits where the capacitor is selected to provide for a nearly constant dc output voltage, the
RC time constant is large compared to the period of the sine wave. Moreover, the diode turns on
close to the peak of the sine wave when α ≈ π/2
▪ The change in output voltage when the diode is off is described as

▪ For the given equation, if Vθ ≈ Vm and θ ≈ π/2, then evaluate the given equation at α = π/2
 Half-Wave Rectifier with a Capacitor Filter
▪ The ripple voltage can then be approximated as

▪ Furthermore, the exponential in the above equation can be approximated by the series expansion

▪ Substituting for the exponential

The output voltage ripple is reduced by increasing the filter capacitor C. As C increases, the
conduction interval for the diode decreases. Therefore, increasing the capacitance to reduce the
output voltage ripple results in a larger peak diode current.