Register to download premium content!

Home / Diodes / Full Wave Rectifier

Full Wave Rectifier

Power Diodes can be connected together to form a full wave rectifier
that convert AC voltage into pulsating DC voltage for use in power
supplies

In the previous Power Diodes tutorial we discussed ways of reducing the

ripple or voltage variations on a direct DC voltage by connecting smoothing
capacitors across the load resistance.

While this method may be suitable for low power applications it is

unsuitable to applications which need a “steady and smooth” DC supply
We use cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing
voltage. One method to improve on this is to use every half-cycle of the
to visit this site you agree to our use of cookies. More info
input voltage instead of every other half-cycle. The circuit which allows us
to do this is called a Full Wave Rectifier.

Like the half wave circuit, a full wave rectifier circuit produces an output
voltage or current which is purely DC or has some specified DC component.
Full wave rectifiers have some fundamental advantages over their half
wave rectifier counterparts. The average (DC) output voltage is higher than
for half wave, the output of the full wave rectifier has much less ripple than
that of the half wave rectifier producing a smoother output waveform.

In a Full Wave Rectifier circuit two diodes are now used, one for each half
of the cycle. A multiple winding transformer is used whose secondary
winding is split equally into two halves with a common centre tapped
connection, (C). This configuration results in each diode conducting in turn
when its anode terminal is positive with respect to the transformer centre
point C producing an output during both half-cycles, twice that for the half
wave rectifier so it is 100% efficient as shown below.

Full Wave Rectifier Circuit

The full wave rectifier circuit consists of two power diodes connected to a
single load resistance (RL) with each diode taking it in turn to supply
current to the load. When point A of the transformer is positive with
respect to point C, diode D1 conducts in the forward direction as indicated
by the arrows.

When point B is positive (in the negative half of the cycle) with respect to
point C, diode D2 conducts in the forward direction and the current
flowing through resistor R is in the same direction for both half-cycles. As
the output voltage across the resistor R is the phasor sum of the two
waveforms combined, this type of full wave rectifier circuit is also known as
a “bi-phase” circuit.

We can see this affect quite clearly if we run the circuit in the Partsim
Simulator Circuit with the smoothing capacitor removed.

Partsim Simulation Waveform

As the spaces between each half-wave developed by each diode is now
being filled in by the other diode the average DC output voltage across the
load resistor is now double that of the single half-wave rectifier circuit and
is about 0.637Vmax of the peak voltage, assuming no losses.

Where: VMAX is the maximum peak value in one half of the secondary
winding and VRMS is the rms value.

The peak voltage of the output waveform is the same as before for the half-
wave rectifier provided each half of the transformer windings have the
same rms voltage value. To obtain a different DC voltage output different
transformer ratios can be used.

The main disadvantage of this type of full wave rectifier circuit is that a
larger transformer for a given power output is required with two separate
but identical secondary windings making this type of full wave rectifying
circuit costly compared to the “Full Wave Bridge Rectifier” circuit
equivalent.

The Full Wave Bridge Rectifier

Another type of circuit that produces the same output waveform as the full
wave rectifier circuit above, is that of the Full Wave Bridge Rectifier. This
type of single phase rectifier uses four individual rectifying diodes
connected in a closed loop “bridge” configuration to produce the desired
output.

The main advantage of this bridge circuit is that it does not require a special
centre tapped transformer, thereby reducing its size and cost. The single
secondary winding is connected to one side of the diode bridge network
and the load to the other side as shown below.

The Diode Bridge Rectifier

The four diodes labelled D1 to D4 are arranged in “series pairs” with only
two diodes conducting current during each half cycle. During the positive
half cycle of the supply, diodes D1 and D2 conduct in series while diodes
D3 and D4 are reverse biased and the current flows through the load as
shown below.
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.
However in reality, during each half cycle the
current flows through two diodes instead of
just one so the amplitude of the output voltage
is two voltage drops ( 2*0.7 = 1.4V ) less than
the input VMAX amplitude. The ripple frequency
is now twice the supply frequency (e.g. 100Hz
for a 50Hz supply or 120Hz for a 60Hz supply.)
Typical Bridge Rectifier
Although we can use four individual power
diodes to make a full wave bridge rectifier, pre-
made bridge rectifier components are available “off-the-shelf” in a range of
different voltage and current sizes that can be soldered directly into a PCB
circuit board or be connected by spade connectors.

The image to the right shows a typical single phase bridge rectifier with one
corner cut off. This cut-off corner indicates that the terminal nearest to the
corner is the positive or +ve output terminal or lead with the opposite
(diagonal) lead being the negative or -ve output lead. The other two
connecting leads are for the input alternating voltage from a transformer
secondary winding.

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.

Full-wave Rectifier with Smoothing Capacitor

The smoothing capacitor converts the full-wave rippled output of the

rectifier into a more smooth DC output voltage. If we now run the Partsim
Simulator Circuit with different values of smoothing capacitor installed, we
can see the effect it has on the rectified output waveform as shown.

5uF Smoothing Capacitor

The blue plot on the waveform shows the result of using a 5.0uF smoothing
capacitor across the rectifiers output. Previously the load voltage followed
the rectified output waveform down to zero volts. Here the 5uF capacitor is
charged to the peak voltage of the output DC pulse, but when it drops from
its peak voltage back down to zero volts, the capacitor can not discharge as
quickly due to the RC time constant of the circuit.

This results in the capacitor discharging down to about 3.6 volts, in this
example, maintaining the voltage across the load resistor until the capacitor
re-charges once again on the next positive slope of the DC pulse. In other
words, the capacitor only has time to discharge briefly before the next DC
pulse recharges it back up to the peak value. Thus, the DC voltage applied
to the load resistor drops only by a small amount. But we can improve this
still by increasing the value of the smoothing capacitor as shown.

50uF Smoothing Capacitor

Here we have increased the value of the smoothing capacitor ten-fold from
5uF to 50uF which has reduced the ripple increasing the minimum
discharge voltage from the previous 3.6 volts to 7.9 volts. However, using
the Partsim Simulator Circuit we have chosen a load of 1kΩ to obtain these
values, but as the load impedance decreases the load current increases
causing the capacitor to discharge more rapidly between charging pulses.

The effect of a supplying a heavy load with a single smoothing or reservoir

capacitor can be reduced by the use of a larger capacitor which stores more
energy and discharges less between charging pulses. Generally for DC
power supply circuits the smoothing capacitor is an Aluminium Electrolytic
type that has a capacitance value of 100uF or more with repeated DC
voltage pulses from the rectifier charging up the capacitor to peak voltage.

However, there are two important parameters to consider when choosing a

suitable smoothing capacitor and these are its Working Voltage, which must
be higher than the no-load output value of the rectifier and its Capacitance
Value, which determines the amount of ripple that will appear
superimposed on top of the DC voltage.

Too low a capacitance value and the capacitor has little effect on the output
waveform. But if the smoothing capacitor is sufficiently large enough
(parallel capacitors can be used) and the load current is not too large, the
output voltage will be almost as smooth as pure DC. As a general rule of
thumb, we are looking to have a ripple voltage of less than 100mV peak to
peak.

The maximum ripple voltage present for a Full Wave Rectifier circuit is not
only determined by the value of the smoothing capacitor but by the
frequency and load current, and is calculated as:

Bridge Rectifier Ripple Voltage

Where: I is the DC load current in amps, ƒ is the frequency of the ripple or

twice the input frequency in Hertz, and C is the capacitance in Farads.

The main advantages of a full-wave bridge rectifier is that it has a smaller

AC ripple value for a given load and a smaller reservoir or smoothing
capacitor than an equivalent half-wave rectifier. Therefore, the
fundamental frequency of the ripple voltage is twice that of the AC supply
frequency (100Hz) where for the half-wave rectifier it is exactly equal to
the supply frequency (50Hz).

The amount of ripple voltage that is superimposed on top of the DC supply

voltage by the diodes can be virtually eliminated by adding a much
improved π-filter (pi-filter) to the output terminals of the bridge rectifier.
This type of low-pass filter consists of two smoothing capacitors, usually of
the same value and a choke or inductance across them to introduce a high
impedance path to the alternating ripple component

Another more practical and cheaper alternative is to use an off the shelf 3-
terminal voltage regulator IC, such as a LM78xx (where “xx” stands for the
output voltage rating) for a positive output voltage or its inverse equivalent
the LM79xx for a negative output voltage which can reduce the ripple by
more than 70dB (Datasheet) while delivering a constant output current of
over 1 amp.

Why not test your knowledge about full wave rectifier circuits using the
Partsim Simulator Tool today. Try different values of smoothing capacitor
and load resistance in your circuit to see the effects on the output
waveform.

In the next tutorial about diodes, we will look at the Zener Diode which
takes advantage of its reverse breakdown voltage characteristic to produce
a constant and fixed output voltage across itself.
417 Comments

Join the conversation

Your Name

Email Address

Write your comment here

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

SUBMIT

NYAMBE MUNDOPU
Hello!
I’ve found the explanation on how the Full Wave Bridge Rectifier
works to be very clear. It has been simplified. If anything, I am
interested in joining the conversation in any other future
discussions.
I thank you in anticipation.

Posted on February 26th 2020 | 7:38 am

 Reply

haziq
can someone help me? I dont know how to get the maximum load
resistance.

Assemble a power supply circuit with Bridge rectifier

The fuse is a downgrading transformer of the ratio 5:1
The diode is silicon with the barrier potential of 0.7V
The regulator filter is 500x10e-6 F.
The resistance of the amplifier is 100 (Ohm)
The power supply comes from an origin of 150VRMS at 60Hz cycle.
Since you are designing an amplifier, determine the maximum
resistance, RL of the amplifier so that the circuit is not shorted.

Show the Voltage-time characteristic at every significant junction.

Proof the direction of your diode is forward bias.

Calculate the possible PIV.

Posted on February 25th 2020 | 7:48 am

 Reply
Lawrence
From the text we used, I understood that the current had to be the
peak value.
This was derived from the first term of a series which gave Vrip / Vp
= T/RC.
Where Vrip is the ripple voltage, Vp is the peak voltage of the AC
waveform, T is the
time constant (1/f) and R is the resistance that discharges the
capacitor. Therefore Vp / R
would be Ip or 1.414 (the square root of 2 or 1/0.707) times the
RMS current value.

Posted on February 24th 2020 | 2:12 am

 Reply

rey
what kind of parts (diode, capacitor, resistor) to be used when
assembling this?

Posted on February 20th 2020 | 12:21 pm

 Reply

Beteck
Nice. Really explains the actual use of a smoothing capacitor.
Posted on February 14th 2020 | 12:11 am
 Reply

Verly Moreno
Tagalog tutorial pls

Posted on February 09th 2020 | 5:51 am

 Reply

Jackson mukuha
want to learn more

Posted on February 03rd 2020 | 6:59 pm

 Reply

David
The best tutorial I have ever seen.Thank you.

Posted on January 11th 2020 | 5:12 pm

 Reply

omar
firstable, Ethan you for accept me in the group. secondly I have a
card for chair massage have an issue I found it without the capacitor
after diode and the fuse . fuse un the board is 4A 250V. so I been
checking other board I found 100uf per 200V, and I was wondering
of I can use this one same vale.

Posted on January 04th 2020 | 7:13 pm

 Reply

Ankit chauhan
Refil in half wave rectifier

Posted on January 02nd 2020 | 4:37 am

 Reply

View More