Question

With suitable sketches, explain the operation of a full-wave rectifier with capacitive filter. Derive the expression for the ripple factor.

Answer 1

  A Full Wave Rectifier is a circuit, which converts an ac voltage into a pulsating dc voltage using both half cycles of the applied ac voltage. It uses two diodes of which one conducts during one half cycle while the other conducts during the other half cycle of the applied ac voltage.

  During the positive half cycle of the input voltage, diode D1 becomes forward biased and D2 becomes reverse biased.Hence D1 conducts and D2 remains OFF. The load current flows through D1 and the voltage drop across RLwill be equal to the input voltage.

During the negative half cycle of the input voltage, diode D1 becomes reverse biased and D2 becomes forward biased.Hence D1 remains OFF and D2 conducts. The load current flows through D2 and the voltage drop across RL will be equal to the input voltage.