FULL WAVE RECITIFIER

PROJECT REPORT
SUBMITTED TO
CENTRAL BOARD OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
FOR THE CLASSES OF

SENIOR SECONDRAY
IN

PHYSICS
2022-2023

BY
ABDUL RAHMAN

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF

Mr. SHYAM PRAKASH
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
CENTRAL BOARD OF SECONDRAY EDUCATION
NEW DELHI
 Declaration

I ABDUL RAHMAN declare that work done in the present project entitled
“Full wave rectifier” has been done thoroughly by me and not copied and
taken from any other literature related to this field. The related literature is
used only to review the advancement and benefit of the research in this
field and has not been submitted for any other degree. If any plagiarism is
found in this work than I shall be totally responsible for it.

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FULL WAVE
RECTIFIER

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 CONTENTS
S.No. Topic Page no.
Introduction – What is a
1. full wave rectifier
Center tapped full wave
2. rectifier
• Construction of
center tapped full
wave rectifier
• Working of
center-tapped full
wave rectifier
• Output waveform
• Filter circuit
Full wave bridge rectifier
3. • Construction of
full wave bridge
rectifier
• Principle of full
wave bridge
rectifier
• Filter circuit
Full wave rectifier
4. formula
• Ripple factor on a
full wave rectifier
• Efficiency factor of
a full wave
rectifier
• Form factor of a full
wave rectifier
Advantages of a full wave
5. rectifier
Disadvantages of a full
6. wave rectifier
Conclusion
7.

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 FULL WAVE RECTIFIER

Introduction
A full wave rectifier is defined as a type of rectifier that converts both
halves of each cycle of an alternating wave (AC signal) into a pulsating
DC signal. Full-wave rectifiers are used to convert AC voltage to DC
voltage, requiring multiple diodes to construct. Full wave rectification is
the process of converting an AC signal to a DC signal.
Circuits that convert alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) are
known as rectifiers. If such rectifiers rectify both the positive and negative
half cycles of an input alternating waveform, the rectifiers are full-wave
rectifiers.
Full-wave rectifiers achieve this by using a group of diodes. A diode
permits current in one direction only and blocks the current in the other
direction. We use this principle to construct various rectifiers.
We can classify rectifiers into two types:

1. Half Wave Rectifier

2. Full Wave Rectifier
When we use a half-wave rectifier, a significant amount of power gets
wasted as only one half of each cycle passes through, and the other cycle
gets blocked. Moreover, the half-wave rectifier is not efficient (40.6%), and
we can not use it for applications that need a smooth and steady DC
output. For a more efficient and steady DC output, a full wave rectifier is
used.

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 We can further classify full wave rectifiers into:

• Center-tapped Full Wave Rectifier

• Full Wave Bridge Rectifier

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 Center-tapped Full Wave Rectifier

Construction of Center-tapped Full Wave Rectifier

A center-tapped full-wave rectifier system consists of:

1. Center-tapped Transformer
2. Two Diodes
3. Restive Load
Center-tapped Transformer: – It is a normal transformer with one slight
modification. It has an additional wire connected to the exact center of the
secondary winding.
This type of construction divides the AC voltage into two equal and
opposite voltages, namely +V voltage (Va) and -V voltage (Vb). The total
output voltage is

The circuit diagram is as follows -

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 We apply an AC voltage to the input transformer. During the positive
half-cycle of the AC voltage, terminal 1 will be positive, center-tap will be
at zero potential, and terminal 2 will be negative potential.

This will lead to forwarding bias in diode D1 and cause current to flow
through it. During this time, diode D2 is in reverse bias and will block
current through it.

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 During the negative half-cycle of the input AC voltage, terminal 2 will
become positive relative to terminal 2 and center-tap. This will lead to
forwarding bias in diode D2 and cause current to flow through it. During
this time, diode D1 is in reverse bias and will block current through it.

During the positive cycle, diode D1 conducts, and during the negative
cycle, diode D2 conducts and during the positive cycle.

As a result, both half-cycles are allowed to pass through. The average

output DC voltage here is almost twice the DC output voltage of a half-
wave rectifier.

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 Output Wave
forms

Filter Circuit

We get a pulsating DC voltage with many ripples as the output of the

center-tapped full wave rectifier. We cannot use this pulsating for
practical application.

So, to convert the pulsating DC voltage to pure DC voltage, we use a filter

circuit as shown above. Here we place a capacitor across the load.

The working of the capacitance filter circuit is to short the ripples and
blockthe DC component so that it flows through another path and is
availableacross the load.

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 During the positive half-wave, the diode D1 starts conducting. The
capacitor is uncharged.
When we apply an input AC voltage that happens to be more than the
capacitor voltage, it charges the capacitor immediately to the maximum
value of the input voltage. At this point, the supply voltage is equal to
capacitor voltage.

When the applied AC voltage starts decreasing and less than the
capacitor, the capacitor starts discharging slowly, but this is slower when
compared to the charging of the capacitor, and it does not get enough time
to discharge entirely, and the charging starts again.
So around half of the charge present in the capacitor gets discharged.
During the negative cycle, the diode D2 starts conducting, and the above
process happens again.
This will cause the current to flow in the same direction across the load.

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 Full Wave Bridge Rectifier
Construction of Full Wave Bridge Rectifier
A full wave bridge rectifier is a rectifier that will use four diodes or more
than that in a bridge formation. A full wave bridge rectifier system
consists of

1. Four Diodes
2. Restive Load
We use the diodes, namely A, B, C and D, which form a bridge circuit. The
circuit diagram is as follows.

Principle of Full Wave Bridge Rectifier

We apply an AC across the bridge. During the positive half-cycle, terminal
1 becomes positive, and terminal 2 becomes negative.

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 This will cause the diodes A and C to become forward-biased, and the
current will flow through it. Meanwhile, diodes B and D will become
reverse-biased and block current through them. The current will flow
from 1 to 4 to 3 to 2.

During the negative half-cycle, terminal 1 will become negative, and

terminal 2 will become positive.

This will cause the diodes B and D to become forward-biased and will
allow current through them. At the same time, diodes A and C will be
reverse-biased and will block the current through them. The current will
flow from 2 to 4 to 3 to 1.

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 Filter Circuit
We get a pulsating DC voltage with many ripples as the output of the full
wave bridge rectifier. We can not use this voltage for practical
applications.

So, to convert the pulsating DC voltage to pure DC voltage, we use a filter

circuit as shown above. Here we place a capacitor across the load. The
working of the capacitance filter circuit is to short the ripples and block
theDC component so that it flows through another path, and that is
throughthe load.

During the half-wave, the diodes A and C conduct. It charges the

capacitor immediately to the maximum value of the input voltage. When
the rectified pulsating voltage starts decreasing and less than the capacitor
voltage, the capacitor starts discharging and supplies current to the load.

This discharging is slower when compared to the charging of the capacitor, and
it does not get enough time to discharge entirely, and the charging starts again
in the next pulse of the rectified voltage waveform.

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 So around half of the charge present in the capacitor gets discharged.
During the negative cycle, the diodes B and D start conducting, and the
above process happens again. This causes the current to continue to flow
through the same direction across the load.

Full Wave Rectifier Formula

We will now derive the various formulas for a full wave rectifier based on
the preceding theory and graphs above.

Ripple Factor of a Full Wave Rectifier (γ)

‘Ripple’ is the unwanted AC component remaining when converting the
AC voltage waveform into a DC waveform. Even though we try out best
to remove all AC components, there is still some small amount left on the
output side which pulsates the DC waveform. This undesirable AC
component is called ‘ripple’.

To quantify how well the half-wave rectifier can convert the AC voltage
into DC voltage, we use what is known as the ripple factor (represented
by γ or r).

The ripple factor is the ratio between the RMS value of the AC voltage (on
the input side) and the DC voltage (on the output side) of the rectifier.

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 The formula for ripple factor is:

Where Arms is the RMS value of the AC component, and Dc is the DC

component in the rectifier.
The ripple factor of a center-tapped full-wave rectifier is equal to 0.48 (i.e.
γ = 0.48).

Note: To construct a good rectifier, we need to keep the ripple factor as

minimum as possible. We can use capacitors or nonconductors to re-
duce theripples in the circuit.

Efficiency of a Full Wave Rectifier (η)

Rectifier efficiency (η) is the ratio between the output DC power and the
input AC power. The formula for the efficiency is equal to:

The efficiency of a center-tapped full-wave rectifier is equal to 81.2% (i.e.

ma = 81.2%).

Form Factor of a Full Wave Rectifier (F.F)

The form factor is the ratio between RMS value and average value.
The formula for form factor is given below:

The form factor of a center-tapped full wave rectifier is equal to 1.11 (i.e.
FF = 1.11).

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 Advantages of Full Wave Rectifiers
The advantages of full wave rectifiers include:

• Full wave rectifiers have higher rectifying efficiency

than half-wave rectifiers. This means that they convert AC to
DC more efficiently.
• They have low power loss because no voltage signal is wasted
in the rectification process.
• The output voltage of a center-tapped full wave rectifier has
lower ripples than a half wave rectifiers.

Disadvantages of Full Wave Rectifiers

The disadvantages of full wave rectifiers include:

• The center-tapped rectifier is more expensive than a half-

wave rectifier and tends to occupy a lot of space.
• It is difficult to locate the center tap on the secondary
winding.
• The DC output is small as each diode utilizes only one half of
the transformer's secondary Voltages.
• The diodes used have high peak inverse voltage.
• Full wave rectifier requires more diodes IE two for center tap
rectifier and four for bridge rectifier
• When a small voltage is required to be rectified this full wave
rectifier circuit is not suitable.

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 CONCLUSION

To design and simulate a Full Wave Rectifier circuit

with working theory and the analysis for the full
bridge rectifier circuit. The full-wave rectifier allows
us to convert almost all the incoming AC power to
DC.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

I Abdul Rahman of class XII,B (PCB) hereby declare

that I have done this project with the help of mypar-
ents, friends and subject teacher.
For finalizing thus project I have used the following
sources –
• Physics ncert book
• electrical4u.com
• electronicpost.com

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