Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Analysis of Half Wave Uncontrolled Rectifier and performance parameters in

MATLAB Simulink
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1 Objectives
The goals of this lab are:
 To become familiar with the MATLAB and Simulink environments
 To develop an understanding for the behavior of half wave rectifier with R
load and RL load
 to understand the different performance parameters in half wave rectifier
2 Theory
MATLAB (MATrix LABoratory) is a software package that is widely used in
engineering design. Simulink is a graphical front end to MATLAB that allows you
to easily create models of dynamical systems in form of block diagrams. In this lab,
you will learn how to construct different representations of the model of a simple
RL, RC and LC circuits and simulate their behavior.
This lab focuses on the use of MATLAB as a tool in power and electronics circuits
design. If you have never been exposed to MATLAB before, please consult one of
the many introductory resources available online. You will mainly be using the
MATLAB Control System Toolbox. A great way to get started with the toolbox is
to run the demo. This is done by typing demo(’toolbox’,’control’) at the MATLAB
prompt. One great thing about MATLAB is its comprehensive and easy-to-use
documentation. Make use of it!

3 pre lab
3.1 Readings:
Please read the following documents before the lab:
“Lab Policies” handout
“Useful MATLAB Commands” handout
“Common Simulink Components” handout

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

3.2 Half Wave Rectification

A rectifier is a circuit which converts the Alternating Current (AC) input power into
a Direct Current (DC) output power. The input power supply may be either a single-
phase or a multi-phase supply with the simplest of all the rectifier circuits being that
Page | 2 of the Half Wave Rectifier.
The power diode in a half wave rectifier circuit passes just one half of each complete
sine wave of the AC supply in order to convert it into a DC supply. Then this type
of circuit is called a “half-wave” rectifier because it passes only half of the incoming
AC power supply as shown below.
3.3 Half Wave Rectifier Circuit

Figure 3.1 Half wave rectifier wit R load

During each “positive” half cycle of the AC sine wave, the diode is forward biased as
the anode is positive with respect to the cathode resulting in current flowing through
the diode.
Since the DC load is resistive (resistor, R), the current flowing in the load resistor is
therefore proportional to the voltage (Ohm´s Law), and the voltage across the load
resistor will therefore be the same as the supply voltage, Vs (minus Vƒ), that is the
“DC” voltage across the load is sinusoidal for the first half cycle only so Vout = Vs.
During each “negative” half cycle of the AC sinusoidal input waveform, the diode
is reverse biased as the anode is negative with respect to the cathode. Therefore, NO
current flows through the diode or circuit. Then in the negative half cycle of the

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 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

supply, no current flows in the load resistor as no voltage appears across it so

therefore, Vout = 0.
The current on the DC side of the circuit flows in one direction only making the
circuit Unidirectional. As the load resistor receives from the diode a positive half of
Page | 3 the waveform, zero volts, a positive half of the waveform, zero volts, etc, the value
of this irregular voltage would be equal in value to an equivalent DC voltage of
0.318*Vmax of the input sinusoidal waveform or 0.45*Vrms of the input sinusoidal
waveform.
Then the equivalent DC voltage, VDC across the load resistor is calculated as follows

Figure 3.2 Half wave rectifier wit R load rectified output voltage

The operation of a half wave rectifier is pretty simple. From the theory part, you
should know that a pn junction diode conducts current only in 1 direction. In other
words, a pn junction diode conducts current only when it is forward biased. The
same principle is made use of in a half wave rectifier to convert AC to DC. The input
we give here is an alternating current. This input voltage is stepped down using a
transformer. The reduced voltage is fed to the diode ‘D’ and load resistance RL.
During the positive half cycles of the input wave, the diode ‘D’ will be forward
biased and during the negative half cycles of input wave, the diode ‘D’ will be
reverse biased. We take the output across load resistor RL. Since the diode passes
current only during one-half cycle of the input wave, we get an output as shown in
the diagram. The output is positive and significant during the positive half cycles of
the input wave. At the same time output is zero or insignificant during negative half
cycles of the input wave. This is called half wave rectification.

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

3.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Half wave rectifier

A half wave rectifier is rarely used in practice. It is never preferred as the power
Page | 4 supply of an audio circuit because of the very high ripple factor. High ripple factor
will result in noises in the input audio signal, which in turn will affect audio quality.
The advantage of a half wave rectifier is only that its cheap, simple and easy to
construct. It is cheap because of the low number of components involved. Simple
because of the straight forwardness in circuit design. Apart from this, a half wave
rectifier has more number of disadvantages than advantages!
3.5 Disadvantages of Half wave rectifier
1. The output current in the load contains, in addition to dc component, ac
components of basic frequency equal to that of the input voltage frequency. Ripple
factor is high and an elaborate filtering is, therefore, required to give steady dc
output.
2. The power output and, therefore, rectification efficiency is quite low. This is due
to the fact that power is delivered only during one-half cycle of the input alternating
voltage.
3. Transformer utilization factor is low.
4. DC saturation of the transformer core resulting in magnetizing current and
hysteresis losses and generation of harmonics.
The DC output available from a half-wave rectifier is not satisfactory to make a
general power supply. However, it can be used for some applications like battery
charging.

3.6 Half Wave Rectifier with Capacitor Filter

The output of half wave rectifier is not a constant DC voltage. You can observe from
the output diagram that it’s a pulsating dc voltage with ac ripples. In real life
applications, we need a power supply with smooth waveforms. In other words, we
desire a DC power supply with the constant output voltage. A constant output
voltage from the DC power supply is very important as it directly impacts the
reliability of the electronic device we connect to the power supply.

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

We can make the output of half wave rectifier smooth by using a filter (a capacitor
filter or an inductor filter) across the diode. In some cases, a resistor-capacitor
coupled filter (RC) is also used. The circuit diagram below shows a half wave
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rectifier with capacitor filter.

Figure 3.3 Half wave rectifier (R load) with capacitor filter

3.7 Performance parameters of Half Wave Rectifier

1) Peak Inverse Voltage (PIV)
Peak Inverse Voltage (PIV) rating of a diode is important in its design stages.
It is the maximum voltage that the rectifying diode has to withstand, during the
reversely biased period.

When the diode is reverse biased, during the negative half cycle, there will be
no current flow through the load resistor RL. Hence, there will be no voltage
drop through the load resistance RL which causes the entire input voltage to
appear across the diode. Thus VSMAX, the peak secondary voltage, appears
across the diode. Therefore,

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Peak Inverse Voltage (PIV) of half wave rectifier = VSMAX

2) Average output current

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𝐼𝑀 sin 𝜃 , 0<𝜃<𝜋
𝐼0 = {
0, 𝜋 < 𝜃 < 2𝜋
so
𝑇
1
𝐼𝐷𝐶 = ∫ 𝐼0 𝑑𝜃
𝑇
0
𝜋
1
𝐼𝐷𝐶 = ∫ 𝐼0 𝑑𝜃
2𝜋
0
𝜋
1
𝐼𝐷𝐶 = ∫ 𝐼𝑀 sin 𝜃 𝑑𝜃
2𝜋
0

𝜋
𝐼𝑀
𝐼𝐷𝐶 = ∫ sin 𝜃 𝑑𝜃
2𝜋
0

𝐼𝑀
𝐼𝐷𝐶 = [− cos 𝜃|𝜋0 ]
2𝜋

𝐼𝑚
𝐼𝑑𝑐 = ………. (1)
𝜋

3) Output RMS current

𝜋 2
1
𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 = √ (∫ 𝐼 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑑𝜃)
2𝜋 0 𝑚

𝐼𝑚
𝐼𝑟𝑚𝑠 = …....... (2)
2

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

4) Output dc voltage
as
𝑣𝑑𝑐 = 𝐼𝑑𝑐 𝑅𝐿
put value of 𝐼𝑑𝑐 we get
Page | 7 𝑣𝑚
𝑣𝑑𝑐 = ……… (3)
𝜋

5) Efficiency
𝑃𝑑𝑐
𝜂=
𝑃𝑎𝑐

𝑖𝑑𝑐 2 𝑅𝐿
𝜂=
𝑖𝑟𝑚𝑠 2 𝑅𝐿

𝜂 = 40.6% ……... (4)

6) Ripple factor
𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑐 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡
𝑟=
𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑐 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

𝑖𝑎𝑐 𝑟𝑚𝑠
𝑟=
𝑖𝑑𝑐

𝑖 2
𝑟 = √ 𝑟𝑚𝑠2 − 1 ……… (5)
𝑖𝑑𝑐

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

4 Lab
4.1 Half wave Simulink model

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Figure 3.4 Half wave rectifier wit R load

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Page | 9

Figure 3.5 Half wave rectifier ripple factor and form factor

Figure 3.6 Half wave rectifier efficiency, output RMS and average current

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 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Page | 10

Figure 3.6a Half wave rectifier transformer utilization factor

Figure 3.6b Half wave rectifier input power factor

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Table 3.1 Block parameters of Figure 3.4

Block Library Parameter Value
AC voltage source SimPowerSystem Amplitude (volts) 220 (peak)
Frequency 60 Hz
Page | 11 Phase 0
Diode SimPowerSystem Internal resistance 0.001
(ohm)
RLC series branch SimPowerSystem [R (ohm) L (H)] [5 10e-3]
RMS SimPowerSystem Fundamental 60 Hz
frequency
Mean SimPowerSystem Fundamental 60 Hz
frequency

Figure 3.7 Half wave rectifier input, output voltages and output current for R load

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

4.2 SPECTRUM FOR HALF WAVE RECTIFIER:

50
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45

40

35

30
magnitude

25

20

15

10

0
0 60 120 180 240 300 360 420 480 540 600
no of hormonics

Figure 3.7a Half wave rectifier harmonic spectrum

4.3 Conclusion
From frequency spectrum it is analyzed that:
The frequency spectrum containing the DC component as well as the ac harmonics. Also
the ac harmonics are dominant on the DC component.
But for pure DC, the ac Harmonics must be equal to zero. Only Dc component exist for
good rectifier.
So it is concluded that the output of half wave rectifier is not giving pure DC. And it is not
good rectifier.

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

4.4 RL Load Model

Page | 13

Figure 3.8 Half wave rectifier wit RL load

Figure 3.9 Half wave rectifier performance parameters

Simulation

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Page | 14

Figure 3.10 Half wave rectifier output voltage and current for RL load

Conclusion:
4.5 RL load with freewheeling diode

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Model

Page | 15

Figure 3.11 Half wave rectifier with freewheeling diode for RL load

Simulation:

Figure 3.12 Half wave rectifier performance parameters RL load

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com

 Power Electronics Lab Lab #: 03

Page | 16

Figure 3.13 Half wave rectifier with freewheeling diode output current and voltage

Conclusion

5 Post lab
TASKS:

 The output of a half wave rectifier is connected to a 12 V battery (i.e., used as a battery
charger). Make its circuit in Simulink (using SimPowerSystem tool) and plot the output voltage,
current and diode voltage. Also calculate the different parameters for it
Note: R=4.26 Ω, Vp=120 V and frequency=60 Hz. Justify your work using table and wirte your
calculation in MS word.

 Change the values of inductor and supply voltage in the lab task and attach your analysis in your
lab report

Lab Instructor: Engr. Malak Adnan Khan malakadnankhan55@gmail.com