Half wave Rectifier

Content
• Diode rectifier and types
• Half wave rectifier
• Operation
• Average output voltage and current
• Efficiency

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 Diode Rectifier
• A rectifier is a circuit which converts the AC
input power into a Direct Current (DC) output
power.

Types of Diode rectifier

(i) Half wave rectifier (ii) Full wave rectifier

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 Half-wave Rectifier

• In half-wave rectifier, the diode is conducting

only during the positive half-cycles of input a.c.
supply.
• Hence, input voltage is appeared across the load.
• The negative half-cycles of a.c. supply, the diode
is reverse biased and hence no voltage is appeared
across the load.

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Operation of Half-wave rectifier
Circuit diagram Voltage and current waveforms

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Operation cont.…

• During the positive half-cycle of input a.c. voltage,

terminal A becomes positive with respect the terminal B.
• This makes the diode forward biased and hence output
voltage is equal to input voltage.
• During the negative half-cycle, terminal A is negative
respect the terminal B. Under this condition, the diode
is reverse biased. Therefore, the output voltage across
load is equal to zero.
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•   Average output Voltage of Half
wave rectifier

+0
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•  

• Average load current

Efficiency : It is defined as ratio of dc power available

at the load to the input AC power
7
   
Efficiency=

Efficiency=

Efficiency = =40.6%
 
 

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 Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
• It is requires less number of components to
construct
• Simple circuit
Disadvantages
The output power is not satisfactory to make a
general power supply, Hence, it is not suitable for
practical applications and also poor transformer
utilization
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