Page 1026 - Basic Electrical Engineering

15

Rectifiers and Other Diode Circuits

TOPICS DISCUSSED

Half-wave and full-wave rectifier circuits
Analysis of rectifiers
Filters
Clipping and clamping circuits

15.1 RECTIFIERS

15.1.1 Introduction

A rectifier is a device that converts ac supply into dc using diodes.

Rectification can be done by half-wave or full-wave rectification circuits. All
electronic circuits need a dc voltage for their operation. The supply voltage

available is from the ac mains which is 230 V, 50 Hz supply. A rectifier will
first step down the ac supply voltage to the required level by using a step-

down transformer. A single diode can be used to rectify the ac voltage into
half-wave rectified dc voltage. Since the rectified voltage is a unidirectionally

changing dc, filter circuits are used to get steady dc output.
In this section we will discuss half-wave and full-wave rectifier circuits.

15.1.2 Half-wave Rectifier