Full wave Bridge rectifier Circuit using Proteus Software | Bridge Rectifier|2021

A Full wave rectifier is a circuit arrangement which makes use of both half cycles of input alternating current (AC) and converts them to direct current (DC). In our tutorial on Half wave rectifiers, we have seen that a half wave rectifier makes use of only one-half cycle of the input alternating current. Thus a full wave rectifier is much more efficient (double+) than a half wave rectifier. This process of converting both half cycles of the input supply (alternating current) to direct current (DC) is termed full wave rectification.

Full wave rectifier can be constructed in 2 ways. The first method makes use of a centre tapped transformer and 2 diodes. This arrangement is known as Center Tapped Full Wave Rectifier.

Full Wave Rectifier – Working & Operation The working & operation of a full wave bridge rectifier is pretty simple. The circuit diagrams and waveforms we have given below will help you understand the operation of a bridge rectifier perfectly. In the circuit diagram, 4 diodes are arranged in the form of a bridge. The transformer secondary is connected to two diametrically opposite points of the bridge at points A & C. The load resistance RL is connected to bridge through points B and D. The Positive Half-cycle During the negative half cycle of the supply, diodes D3 and D4 conduct in series, but diodes D1 and D2 switch “OFF” as they are now reverse biased. The current flowing through the load is the same direction as before. The Negative Half-cycle As the current flowing through the load is unidirectional, so the voltage developed across the load is also unidirectional the same as for the previous two diode full-wave rectifier, therefore the average DC voltage across the load is 0.637Vmax.

The Smoothing Capacitor We saw in the previous section that the single phase half-wave rectifier produces an output wave every half cycle and that it was not practical to use this type of circuit to produce a steady DC supply. The full-wave bridge rectifier however, gives us a greater mean DC value (0.637 Vmax) with less superimposed ripple while the output waveform is twice that of the frequency of the input supply frequency.

We can improve the average DC output of the rectifier while at the same time reducing the AC variation of the rectified output by using smoothing capacitors to filter the output waveform. Smoothing or reservoir capacitors connected in parallel with the load across the output of the full wave bridge rectifier circuit increases the average DC output level even higher as the capacitor acts like a storage device as shown below.

Peak Inverse Voltage of a Full wave bridge rectifier: Let’s analyse peak inverse voltage (PIV) of a full wave bridge rectifier using the circuit diagram. At any instant when the transformer second ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHv1RT0fQSQ