5 FULL-WAVE RECTIFIERS:

Converting AC to DC

5.1 INTRODUCTION

The objective of a full-wave rectifier is to produce a voltage or current which is purely dc or has
some specified dc component. While the purpose of the full-wave rectifier is basically the same
as that of the half-wave rectifier, full-wave rectifiers have some fundamental advantages. The
average current in the ac source is zero in the full-wave rectifier, thus avoiding problems
associated with nonzero average source currents, particularly in transformers. The output of
the full-wave rectifier has inherently less ripple than the half-wave rectifier.

In this chapter, uncontrolled and controlled single-phase and three-phase full-wave converters
used as rectifiers are analyzed for various types of loads. Also included are examples of
controlled converters operating as inverters, where power flow is from the dc side to the ac
side.

5.2 SINGLE-PHASE FULL-WAVE UNCONTROLED RECTIFIERS

The bridge rectifier and the center-tapped transformer rectifier of Figs. 4-1 and 4-2 are two
basic single-phase full-wave rectifiers.

(a) (b)

1
 (c)
Figure 5.1: Full-wave bridge rectifier, (a) Circuit diagram, (b) Alternative representation. (c)
Voltages and currents.

2
 (a)

(b)
Figure 5.2: Full-wave center-tapped rectifier (a) circuit and (b) voltages and currents.

3
The Bridge Rectifier

For the bridge rectifier of Fig. 5.1, some basic observations are as follows:

1. Diodes D1 and D2 conduct together, and D3 and D4 conduct together. Kirchhoff's voltage law
around the loop containing the source, D1, and D3 shows that D1 and D3 cannot be on at the
same time. Similarly, D2 and D4 cannot conduct simultaneously. The load current can be
positive or zero but never negative.

2. The voltage across the load is + vs when D1 and D2 are on. The voltage across the load is -vs
when D3 and D4 are on.

3. The maximum voltage across a reverse-biased diode is the peak value of the source. This can
be shown by Kirchhoff's voltage law around the loop containing the source, D1, and D3. With
D1 on, the voltage across D3 is -vs.

4. The current entering the bridge from the source is 𝑖𝐷1 − 𝑖𝐷4 , which is symmetric about zero.
Therefore, the average source current is zero.

5. The rms source current is the same as the rms load current. The source current is the same
as the load current for half of the source period and is the negative of the load current for
the other half. The squares of the load and source currents are the same, so the rms
currents are equal.

6. The fundamental frequency of the output voltage is 2𝜔, where 𝜔 is the frequency of the ac
input, since two periods of the output occur for every period of the input. The Fourier series
of the output consists of a dc term and the even harmonics of the source frequency.

The Center-tapped Transformer Rectifier

The voltage waveforms for a resistive load for the rectifier using the center-tap transformer are
shown in Fig. 5.2. Some basic observations for this circuit are as follows:

1. Kirchhoff's voltage law shows that only one diode can conduct at a time. The load current
can be positive or zero but never negative.

2. The output voltage is +vs1 when D1 conducts and is -vs2 when D2 conducts. The transformer
secondary voltages are related to the source voltage by vs1 = vs2 =vs(N2/2N1).

3. Kirchhoff's voltage law around the transformer secondary windings, D 1, and D2 shows that
the maximum voltage across a reverse-biased diode is twice the peak value of the load
voltage.

4
4. Current in each half of the transformer secondary is reflected to the primary, resulting in an
average source current of zero.

5. The transformer provides electrical isolation between the source and the load.

6. The fundamental frequency of the output voltage is 2𝜔, since two periods of the output
occur for every period of the input.

The lower peak diode voltage in the bridge rectifier makes it more suitable for high-voltage
applications. The center-tapped transformer rectifier, in addition to including electrical
isolation, has only one diode voltage drop between the source and load, making it desirable for
low-voltage, high-current applications.

The following discussion focuses on the full-wave bridge rectifier but generally applies to
the center-tapped circuit as well.

Resistive Load

The voltage across a resistive load for the bridge rectifier of Fig. 5.1 is expressed as

5.1

The dc component of the output voltage is the average value, and load current is simply the
resistor voltage divided by resistance:

5.2

2
Power absorbed by the load resistor can be determined from 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑅, where 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 for the full-
wave rectified current waveform is the same as for an unrectified sine wave:

5.3
The source current for the full-wave rectifier with a resistive load is a sinusoid which is in phase
with the voltage, so the power factor is 1.

5
R-L Load

For an R-L series-connected load (Fig. 5.3a), the method of analysis is similar to the half-wave
rectifier with the freewheeling diode discussed in Chapter 4. After a transient that occurs during
start-up, the load current i0 reaches a periodic steady-state condition similar to that in Fig. 5.3b.

For the bridge circuit, current is transferred from one pair of diodes to the other pair when the
source changes polarity. The voltage across the R-L load is a full-wave rectified sinusoid, as it
was for the resistive load. The full-wave rectified sinusoidal voltage across the load can be
expressed as a Fourier series consisting of a dc term and the even harmonics:

5.4

The current in the R-L load is then computed using superposition, taking each frequency
separately and combining the results. The dc current and current amplitude at each frequency
is computed from

5.5

Note that as the harmonic number n increases in Eq. 5.4, the voltage amplitude decreases. For
an R-L load, the impedance Z„ increases as n increases. The combination of decreasing Vn and
increasing Z„ makes I„ decrease rapidly for increasing harmonic number. Therefore, the dc term
and only a few, if any, of the ac terms are usually necessary to describe current in an R-L load.

Example 5-1 Full-wave Rectifier with R-L Load

The bridge rectifier circuit of Fig. 5.3a has an ac source with Vm = 100 V at 60 Hz and a series R-L
load with R = 10 Ω and L = 10 mH.

(a) Determine the average current in the load,

6
(b) Estimate the peak-to-peak variation in load current based on the first ac term in the Fourier
series,

(c) Determine the power absorbed by the load and the power factor of the circuit,

(d) Determine the average and rms currents in the diodes.

Solution

(a) The average load current is determined from the dc term in the Fourier series. The voltage
across the load is a full-wave rectified sine wave which has the Fourier series determined
from Eq. 5.4. Average output voltage is

and average load current is

(b) Amplitudes of the ac voltage terms are determined from Eq. 5.4. For n = 2 and 4,

The amplitudes of the first two ac current terms in the current Fourier series are computed
from Eq. 5.5:

The current I2 is much larger than I4 and higher order harmonics, so I2 can be used to
estimate the peak-to-peak variation in load current, ∆i0 ≈ 2(3.39) = 6.78 A. Actual variation
in i0 will be larger because of the higher order terms.

7
 2
(c) The power absorbed by the load is determined from 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 . The rms current is then deter-
mined from Eq. 2.43 as

Adding more terms in the series would not be useful because they are small and have little
effect on the result. Power in the load is

The rms source current is the same as the rms load current. The power factor is

(d) Each diode conducts for one-half of the time, so

and

In some applications, the load inductance may be relatively large or made large by adding
external inductance. If the inductive impedance for the ac terms in the Fourier series effectively
eliminates the ac current terms in the load, the load current is essentially dc. If 𝜔𝐿 ≫ 𝑅,

5.6

Load and source voltages and currents are shown in Fig. 5.3c.

8
Source Harmonics

Non-sinusoidal source current is a concern in power systems. Source currents like that of Fig.
5.3 have a fundamental frequency equal to the source's but are rich in the odd-numbered
harmonics. Measures such as THD and DF, as presented in Chapter 2, describe the non-
sinusoidal property of the source current. Where harmonics are of concern, filters can be added
to the input of the rectifier.

Capacitance Output Filter

Placing a large capacitor in parallel with a resistive load can produce an output voltage that is
essentially dc (Fig. 5.4). The analysis is very much like that of the half-wave rectifier with a
capacitance filter in Chapter 4. In the full-wave circuit, the time that the capacitor discharges is
smaller than for the half-wave circuit because of the rectified sine wave in the second half of
each period. The output voltage ripple for the full-wave rectifier is approximately one-half that
of the half-wave rectifier. The peak output voltage will be less in the full-wave circuit because
there are two diode voltage drops rather than one.

Figure 5.4: Full-wave rectifier with capacitance filter.

The analysis proceeds exactly as for the half-wave rectifier. The output voltage is a positive
sine function when one of the diode pairs is conducting and is a decaying exponential
otherwise. Assuming ideal diodes,

9
 5.7

where 𝜃 is the angle where the diodes become reverse biased, which is the same as for the
half-wave rectifier and is found using Eq. 4.41:

5.8
The maximum output voltage is Vm, and the minimum output voltage is determined by
evaluating v0 at the angle at which the second pair of diodes turns on, which is 𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋 + 𝛼. At
that boundary point,

or

5.9
which must be solved numerically for 𝛼.

The peak-to-peak voltage variation, or ripple, is the difference between maximum and
minimum voltages:

5.10
This is the same as Eq. 4.49 for voltage variation in the half-wave rectifier, but 𝛼 is larger for the
full-wave rectifier and the ripple is smaller for a given load. Capacitor current is described by
the same equations as for the half-wave rectifier.

In practical circuits where 𝜔𝑅𝐶 ≫ 𝜋,

5.11

The minimum output voltage is then approximated from Eq. 5.8 for the diodes off, evaluated at
𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋:

The ripple voltage for the full-wave rectifier with a capacitor filter can then be approximated as

10
Furthermore, the exponential in the preceding equation can be approximated by the series
expansion,

Substituting for the exponential in the approximation, the peak-to-peak ripple is

5.12

Note that the approximate peak-to-peak ripple voltage for the full-wave rectifier is half that of
the half-wave rectifier from Eq. 4.51. As for the half-wave rectifier, the peak diode current is
much larger than the average diode current, and Eq. 4.48 applies. The average source current is
zero.

Example 5.2 Full-wave Rectifier with Capacitance Filter

The full-wave rectifier of Fig. 5.4 has a 120-V source at 60 Hz, R = 500 Ω, and C = 100 𝜇F.

(a) Determine the peak-to-peak voltage variation of the output,

(b) Determine the value of capacitance that would reduce the output voltage ripple to 1 % of
the dc value.

Solution

From the parameters given,

The angle 9 is determined from Eq. 5.8:

The angle a is determined by the numerical solution of Eq. 5.9:

11
Peak-to-peak output voltage is described by Eq. 5.10:

Note that this is the same load and source as the half-wave rectifier of Example 4.9 in Chapter
4, where ΔVo = 43 V

(b) With the ripple limited to 1%, the output voltage will be held close to Vm, and the approx-
imation of Eq. 5.12 applies:

Solving for C,

5.3 CONTROLLED FULL-WAVE RECTIFIERS

A versatile method of controlling the output of a full-wave rectifier is to substitute controlled

Controlled full-wave rectifiers are shown in Figure 5.5. For the bridge rectifier, SCRs S1 and S2
will become forward biased when the source becomes positive but will not conduct until gate
signals are applied. Similarly, S3 and S4 will become forward biased when the source becomes
negative but will not conduct until they receive gate signals. For the center-tapped transformer
rectifier, S1 is forward biased when 𝑣𝑠 is positive, and S2 is forward biased when 𝑣𝑠 is negative,
but each will not conduct until it receives a gate signal.

12
 Figure 5.5: (a) Controlled full-wave bridge rectifier, (b) Controlled full-wave center-tapped
transformer rectifier, (c) Output for a resistive load.

The delay angle 𝛼 is the angle interval between the forward biasing of the SCR and the gate
signal application. If the delay angle is zero, the rectifiers behave exactly as uncontrolled
rectifiers with diodes. The discussion that follows generally applies to both bridge and center-
tapped rectifiers.

13
5.3.1 Resistive Load

The output voltage waveform for a controlled full-wave rectifier with a resistive load is shown
in Figure 5.5 (c). The average component of this waveform is determined from

(5.13)
Average output current is then

(5.14)

The power delivered to the load is a function of the input voltage, the delay angle, and the load
2
components. 𝑃 = 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑅 is used to determine the power in a resistive load, where

(5.15)

The RMS current in the source is the same as the RMS current in the load.

Example 5.3 Controlled Full-wave Rectifier with Resistive Load

The full-wave controlled bridge rectifier of Figure 5.5 (a) has an AC input of 120 V RMS at 60 Hz
and a 20 Ω load resistor. The delay angle is 40°. Determine the average current in the load, the
power absorbed by the load, and the source volt-amperes.

Solution The average output voltage is determined from Equation 5.13:

Average load current is

Power absorbed by the load is determined from the RMS current from Eq. 5.14, remembering
to use 𝛼 in radians:

14
The RMS current in the source is also 5.80 A, and the apparent power of the source is

The power factor is

5.3.2 R-L Load, Discontinuous Current

Load current for a controlled full-wave rectifier with an R-L load (Figure 5.6) can be either
continuous or discontinuous, and a separate analysis is required for each. Starting the analysis
at 𝜔𝑡 = 0 with zero load current, SCRs S1 and S2 in the bridge rectifier will be forward biased
and S3 and S4 will be reverse biased as the source voltage becomes positive. Gate signals are
applied to S1 and S2 at 𝜔𝑡 = 𝛼, turning S1 and S2 on. With S1 and S2 on, the load voltage is equal
to the source voltage.

15
Figure 5.6: (a) Controlled rectifier with R-L load, (b) Discontinuous current, and (c) Continuous
current.

For this condition, the circuit is identical to that of the controlled half-wave rectifier of Chapter
4, having a current function

(5.16)

The preceding current function becomes zero at 𝜔𝑡 = 𝛼. If 𝛽 < 𝜋 + 𝛼, the current remains at
zero until 𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋 + 𝛼, when gate signals are applied to S3 and S4, which are then forward

16
biased and begin to conduct. This mode of operation is called discontinuous current and is
illustrated in Figure 5.6 (b):

(5.17)

Analysis of the controlled full-wave rectifier operating in the discontinuous current mode is
identical to that of the controlled half-wave rectifier, except that the period for the output
current is 𝜋 rather than 2𝜋 rad.

Example 5.4 Controlled Full-wave Rectifier, Discontinuous Current

The controlled full-wave bridge rectifier of Figure 5.6 (a) has a source of 120 V rms at 60 Hz, R =
10 Ω, L = 20 𝑚H, and a = 60°.

(a) Determine an expression for load current,

(b) Determine the average load current,

(c) Determine the power absorbed by the load.

Solution From the parameters given,

(a) Substituting into Eq. 5.16,

17
Solving 𝑖𝑜 (𝛽) = 0 numerically for 𝛽, 𝛽 = 3.78 rad (216°). Since 𝜋 + 𝛼 = 4.19 > 𝛽, the current is
discontinuous, and the preceding expression for current is valid.

(b) Average load current is determined from the numerical integration of

2
(c) Power absorbed by the load occurs in the resistor and is computed from 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑅, where

5.3.3 R-L Load, Continuous Current

If the load current is still positive at 𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋 + 𝛼 when gate signals are applied to S3 and S4 in
the preceding analysis, S3 and S4 are turned on and S1 and S2 are forced off. Since the initial
condition for current in the second half cycle is not zero, the current function does not repeat.
Equation 5.16 is not valid in the steady state for continuous current. For an R-L load with
continuous current, the steady-state current and voltage waveforms are generally as shown in
Figure 5.6 (c).

The boundary between continuous and discontinuous current is when (𝛽 for Equation
5.16 is 𝜋 + 𝛼. The current at 𝜔𝑡 = 𝜋 + 𝛼 must be greater than zero for continuous-current
operation:

Using

Solving for 𝛼

18
 𝛼≥𝜃

(5.18)

Either Eq. 5.17 or Eq. 5.18 can be used to check whether the load current is continuous or
discontinuous.

A method for determining the output voltage and current for the continuous-current case is to
use the Fourier series. The Fourier series for the voltage waveform for the continuous-current
case shown in Fig. 5.6 (c) is expressed in general form as:

(5.19)

The DC (average) value is

(5.20)

The amplitudes of the AC terms are calculated from

(5.21)

where

(5.22)

Figure 5.7 shows the relationship between normalized harmonic content of the output voltage
and delay angle.

19
The Fourier series for current is determined by superposition, as was done for the uncontrolled
rectifier earlier in this chapter. The current amplitude at each frequency is determined from Eq.
5.5. The RMS current is determined by combining the RMS currents at each frequency.

(5.23)

As the harmonic number increases, the impedance for the inductance increases. Therefore, it
may be necessary to solve for only a few terms of the series to be able to calculate the RMS
current. If the inductor is large, the AC terms will become small, and the current is essentially
DC.

Example 5.5: Controlled Full-wave Rectifier with R-L Load, Continuous Current

The controlled full-wave bridge rectifier of Figure 5.7 (a) has a source of 120 V rms at 60 Hz and
an R-L load, where R = 10 Ω and L = 100 mH. The delay angle 𝛼 = 60° (same as Example 5.4,
except L is larger)

(a) Determine an expression for load current,

(b) Determine the dc (average) component of the current,

(c) Determine the power absorbed by the load.

Solution Equation 4.18 is used to verify that the current is continuous:

(a) The voltage across the load is expressed in terms of the Fourier series of Eq. 5.19. The DC
term is computed from Eq. 5.20:

20
The amplitudes of the ac terms are computed from Eqs. 5.21 and 5.22 and are summarized in
the following table where 𝑍𝑛 = |𝑅 + 𝑗𝜔𝐿| and 𝐼𝑛 = 𝑉𝑛 ⁄𝑍𝑛 :

The RMS current is computed from Eq. 5.23:

2
Power is computed from 𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑅

𝑃 = (5.54)2 (10) = 307 𝑊

Note that the RMS current could be approximated accurately from the DC term and one AC
term (𝑛 = 2). Higher frequency terms are very small and contribute little to the power in the
load.

21