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Half Wave Rectifier

Power Electronics and Applications for

Renewable Energy (EEE406)
Week 2
S2, 2023/24

Lecturer: Xuchen Wang

Xuchen.Wang@xjtlu.edu.cn

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Outline
• Resistive Load
• Resistive-Inductive Load
• The Freewheeling Diode
• The controlled Half-Wave rectifier

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Questions
• What is a rectifier?
• Calculate the load current and load power of the half-
wave rectifier with a resistive load.
• Calculate the load current and load power in a half-wave
rectifier with an RL load.
• What is the function of a freewheeling diode and how to
calculate the average and rms load current?
• How to control the output current and voltage of the
controlled (SCR) half-wave rectifier.

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Introduction
• Half-wave rectifier is a rectifier converts ac to dc.
• Power transfer is from the ac to the dc load.
• The purpose of a rectifier may be to produce an output
that is purely dc component, or the purpose may be to
produce a voltage or current waveform that has a
specified dc component.
• The half-wave rectifier is used most often in low-power
applications because the average current in the supply will
not be zero, which will influence the transformer
performance.
• Therefore, we are not going to use the half-wave rectifiers
very often in practice. But it do help you to understand
more complicated circuits in the future.
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Resistive Load

What is the voltage waveforms across the source,

load and diode?

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Resistive Load

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Resistive Load
The average load voltage and average current are :

The rms load voltage and rms load current are:

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Example 1
For the half-wave rectifier with resistive load, the source is
a sinusoid of 120 V rms at a frequency of 60 Hz. The load
resistor is 5 Ω. Determine (a) the average load current, (b)
the average power absorbed by the load and (c) the power
factor of the circuit.

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Resistive-Inductive Load

Can you figure out the waveforms

on the right hand side?

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• According to Kirchhoff voltage law:

• This is a first-order ODE function, the

solution can be expressed as:

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• The solution of forced response is:

• The solution of natural response is:

• The complete response is:

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• Assuming the initial inductor current is zero,

• The final solution is:

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• Write the function in terms of the angle ωt rather than
time:

• Note this current equation is only valid for 0<ωt<β.

• The first point when the current reaches zero when the
diode turns off is called the extinction angle β (熄弧角).

Can you find the value of β?

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• Substitute β into the current equation (shown last slide):

• Which can be simplified as:

(Then you can find the value β by solving this equation)

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• To summarize, the current equation can be expressed
as:

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Resistive-Inductive Load
• The average power absorbed by the load is , the
average power absorbed by the inductor is zero.
• The rms value of from the current function is:

• The average current is:

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Example 2
For the half-wave rectifier with RL load, R=100 Ω, L=0.1 H,
ω=377 rad/s, and 𝑉𝑉𝑚𝑚 =100 V. Determine (a) an expression
for the current in this circuit. (b) the average current, (c)
the rms current (d) the power absorbed by the RL load,
and (e) the power factor.
For the parameters given,

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The freewheeling diode
Can you determine when each diode conducts?

It is observed that both diodes cannot be forward-

biased at the same time.

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The freewheeling diode

• Diode D1 will be on when the source is positive, and

diode D2 will be on when the source is negative.

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The freewheeling diode
• When the circuit is first energized, the load current is
zero and cannot change instantaneously.

Can you draw load voltage waveform?

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The freewheeling diode
Voltage and currents in steady state:

Load voltage and load current

Diode 1 current

Diode 2 current

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The freewheeling diode
The Fourier series for the half-wave rectified sine wave
for the voltage across the load in steady state is:
∞
𝑉𝑉𝑚𝑚 𝑉𝑉𝑚𝑚 2𝑉𝑉𝑚𝑚
𝑣𝑣𝑜𝑜 (𝑡𝑡) = + sin 𝜔𝜔0 𝑡𝑡 − � cos 𝑛𝑛𝜔𝜔0 𝑡𝑡
𝜋𝜋 2 𝑛𝑛2 − 1 𝜋𝜋
𝑛𝑛=2,4,6...

The current in the load can be expressed as a Fourier

series by using superposition, taking each frequency
separately.
𝑉𝑉𝑛𝑛
𝐼𝐼𝑛𝑛 =
𝑍𝑍𝑛𝑛

where 𝑍𝑍𝑛𝑛 = 𝑅𝑅 + 𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗𝜔𝜔0 𝐿𝐿

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Example 3
Determine the average load voltage and current, and
determine the power absorbed by the resistor of the half
wave rectifier with freewheeling diode and RL load, where
𝑅𝑅 = 2 Ω and 𝐿𝐿 = 25 𝑚𝑚H, 𝑉𝑉𝑚𝑚 is 100 V, and the frequency is
60 Hz.

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The freewheeling diode
• The inductance affects only the AC terms in the
Fourier series.
• If the inductance is infinitely large, the impedance of
the load to the AC terms in the Fourier series is
infinite, and the load current is purely dc. The load
current is:

• A large inductor with a freewheeling diode provides a

means of establishing a nearly constant load current.
The current ripple in load current can be estimated as
being equal to the amplitude of the first AC term in
the Fourier series, which is:

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Example 4
For the half-wave rectifier with a freewheeling diode and RL
load, the source is 240V rms at 60Hz and 𝑅𝑅 = 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 𝑣𝑣𝑜𝑜 , 𝑖𝑖𝐷𝐷1 and 𝑖𝑖𝐷𝐷2
(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.

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The Controlled Half-Wave Rectifier

• The half-wave rectifiers analyzed in the previous are
uncontrolled rectifiers, which means the dc level of the
output and the power transferred to the load are fixed
values.

How can we control the output of a half-wave rectifier?

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The Controlled Half-Wave Rectifier

What are the two conditions to turn on the SCR?

• The SCR must be forward-biased (𝑉𝑉𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 > 0).

• A current must be applied to the gate of the
SCR.

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The Controlled Half-Wave Rectifier
• A gate signal is applied to the SCR at , where α
is the delay angle.

What is the load voltage and the SCR voltage?

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The Controlled Half-Wave Rectifier
The power absorbed by the resistor is , where
the rms voltage across the resistor is:

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Example 3
• Design a circuit to produce an average voltage of 40 V
across a 100 Ω load resistor from a 120 V rms 60 Hz ac
source. Determine the power absorbed by the resistance
and the power factor.

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Review Questions
• What is a rectifier?
• Calculate the load current and load power of the half-
wave rectifier with a resistive load.
• Calculate the load current and load power in a half-wave
rectifier with an RL load.
• What is the function of a freewheeling diode and how to
calculate the average and rms load current?
• How to control the output current and voltage of the
controlled (SCR) half-wave rectifier.

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THANK YOU

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