Electrical Power Systems Technology

Direct Current Power Systems 183

device. The peak inverse voltage (piv) is the maximum voltage across the

diode while it is reverse biased. For the half-wave rectifier, the maximum

voltage developed across the diode is Vmax of the applied AC. As shown

in the preceding formula, the piv of a diode used in a half-wave circuit

must be much larger than the DC voltage developed.

Single-phase Full-wave Rectification

In order to obtain a more pure form of DC energy, it is possible to

improve upon half-wave rectification systems. Figure 7-21 shows a single-

phase full-wave rectifier that uses two diodes and produces a DC output

Figure 7-20. Single-phase half-wave rectification: (A) Forward-biased diode, (8)

Reverse-biased diode, (C) Input/output voltage waveforms