What is Ripple and Ripple Factor?Formula of Ripple Factor
What is Ripple?
When the AC waveform is rectified with a rectifier unit, the rectified output is not perfectly DC rather the DC output has pulsating component called AC components.The pulsating components present in the DC output voltage is called the voltage ripples, and the ripples in the DC current is called the current ripples.
Reasons of ripples in DC output?
The rectification compents like diode, silicon controlled rectifier, Insulated gate bipolar transistor cause the DC output of pulsating nature. The ripples are undesirable in the DC output, however complete elimination of the ripples is impossible. Yes,we can reduce the ripples to a great extend by filtering the rectified DC output voltage.
If we observe the rectified DC output of the full wave rectifier, the rectified DC output is not perfectly DC rather than the rectified DC voltage or current has AC components.
Ripple Factor Definition
The ratio of r.m.s. value of a.c. component to the d.c. component in the rectifier output is known as the ripple factor.
The ripple factor is very important parameter for assessing the effectiveness of the rectifier. The lower ripple factor shows that the ripples in the DC output is less and the efficiency of the rectifier is better. The higher ripple factor shows that there are more flactuating ac component present in the rectified output.
Ripple Factor Formula
The r.m.s. value of rectified DC voltage is the vector sum of the AC components and DC component in the rectified output.