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Kevin Lee, P E
Roger Fish, Dennis Bonkrud
Sola/Hevi-Duty Electric
A Unit of General Signal
This paper discusses the design issues of direct The function of rectification is to convert
current filter reactor. The advantages of using alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC).
such a device as a waveform filter include better Since the DC equivalent value is of primary
regulation than the capacitor filter, and better interest, its value can be measured by the DC
utilization of the volt-ampere capacity of a ammeter placed in the circuit.
rectifier transformer.
Current and Voltage Relationships
To optimize the filter design, the characteristics of
a rectifier circuit are presented. And various The DC value is the average result of the
filtering techniques are reviewed. The instantaneous rectified current over one cycle or a
fundamental concepts, the mathematical period corresponding to 2n: radians.
derivations and some special design procedures
are described in detail.
INTRODUCTION
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Figure 1 illustrates various current levels of the [bl The bridge diodes are subjected to only
full wave bridge circuit. half the peak inverse voltage.
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Figure 2 shows the splitting of the full wave By combining Equations (6)and ( 1 1 the ripple
rectified current into a DC component and a ripple factor for the full wave bridge cafl be expressed
component. as:
rf - .\/F2-1=J1.11Z-r = 0.482 ( 1 2)
Utilization Factor
Figure 2. Illustration of Ripple Factor for Full
Wave Circuit In phase controlled circuitry, the rectifier
transformer is not used as efficiently as it is with
The instantaneous AC ripple component can be a sinusoidal waveform.
represented by:
The utilization factor is a measurement of the
i' =i-IDc ( 1 0) rectifier circuit merit. For single phase circuits
with resistive loads, it is defied as:
The effective value of the ripple component is:
IDCVDC
U , = 1.1lIms x 1.1lV, = 0.812 (15)
\
With a conduction angle of 90" resistive load, the
SCR controlled bridge has a utilization factor of:
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Sinusoidal Bridge
RECTIFIER OUTPUT VOLTAGE
1 r I$~~~LOAD
Rectification
Rectification with SCR
Conduction
1 1 (VOLTAGE RELATIONS 1 1 1
I I
I I
J
U, 0.812 I 0.405
The current through the inductor increases when When the capacitor is not being charged, it
the bridge output voltage exceeds the DC value discharges itself t o the load. By reducing the
and decreases when the bridge output voltage is ripple amplitude in the bridge output voltage, the
less than the DC value. capacitor filter has the advantage of increasing
the DC output voltage. The capacitor filter
If the input inductance is too small, the current arrangements are generally for low DC power
decreases t o zero during a portion of the time applications.
between the peaks of the bridge output voltage.
LC filters are widely employed for the advantage
For the SCR controlled bridge with any given of the complementary characteristics of the filter
conduction angle z - a , the bridge output elements. The inductor can be selected t o allow
voltage can be calculated as: the current flow continuously from the bridge
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output into the filter, but the current flows It is necessary to adjust the air gap volume to
intermittently from the bridge output into the filter compensate for the additional air gap effect
for the capacitor filter setup. caused by the finite reluctance of the iron part of
the reactor core.
FILTER REACTOR DESIGN ASPECTS The physical size of the DC reactor equals that of
a 60 Hz, 1 winding transformer having a volt-
The legend for the following equations is defined ampere rating of:
as:
377 x K x L x I 2
B,, = DC flux density, gauss VA =
2
I,, = direct current, A
BA, = AC flux density, gauss where K depends on the permissible decline in
v = RMS voltage across the filter inductance as the direct current is varied from
f = frequency, Hz zero to the rated value. When K = 1.0, the
decline in inductance may be about 0.5%. When
lg = core gap, inch K = 0.7, the decline may lie between 10% and
lc = core length, inch 20%.
p A = incremental permeability
0.6 x N x I,,
N = number of turns in winding BDC = (22)
A, = core cross section, inch2 4
L = inductance, Henry
B,,, = air gap flux density 3.49 x lo6 x v
BA, = f xA,xN (23)
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between inductance L and factor 0 can be
derived.
TEST RESULTS
SHUN1
Figure 6 is the application where the wave filter
X
SERIES
X1 plays a critical role for the circuit to operate
properly. L1 is the saturable reactor and its AC
reactance varies with the DC power in the wave
Figure 5. The Equivalent Core Loss Circuit. filter circuit. R is the bleeder resistance t o
minimize any self rectification.
I
Figure 6. The Wave Filter Application Circuit.
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The typical waveforms of V1 and V2 are the frequency of V1 or V2. It is obvious that V1
measured as shown in Figures 7, 8 and 9. and V2 do not cancel each other under DC signal
because of the saturable reactor characteristics.
The AC side voltage of saturable reactor L9 is
480 V RMS. Each half of the AC winding has 240 I_ ...... ............. ............. ..................~................................... ...
V. Because each of the t w o DC winding of L1 has ,...................
~~. ....... ....................
~ .......... ~ ....... ...-
significant more turns, the induced AC voltage of
the DC winding is very high. The amplitudes of
V1 and V2 are about 900 V RMS.
1 ;
~ _
................... ......._......,.... ........................... ......_.~
i i... i .........
~ i .. i......... ......i
-
i ~ .. " .......... .. " ;..
............. .....^.,
Figure 8. The waveform of saturable reactor V2. Figure 11. The waveforms of V1 and -V2
with DC=O.
.......... .... ................................................ ... .......,..............................
With DC signal present, how could the wave filter
handle these peculiar waveforms?
355
result of L1 saturable reactor creating the AC flux [71 Markus Zahn, "Electromagnetic Field Theory:
which the wave filter has to handle. A Problem Solving Approach", John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 1979.
The air gap, core size, and turns not only depend
on three interrelated factors: inductance, DC
current in winding, AC voltage in filter caused by
bridge action, but also depend on the induced AC
voltage generated by the saturable reactors.
REFERENCES
356