Generation of High Direct Voltages &

Current

High voltage and Modern Electrical

Insulation
(PE-481)

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Overview

 Introduction
 Half-wave Rectifiers
 Full-wave Rectifiers
 Voltage Doubler Circuits
 Cockroft-walton Multipliers

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Introduction

 The need for HVDC

 For insulation tests of cables and capacitors.
 For impulse generator charging units.
 For fundamental investigations in discharge physics.
 For fundamental investigations of dielectric behavior.
 For applications like electric microscope, X-rays, particle accelerators and
electrostatic precipitators.

 Methods of generation:
 Rectification of high alternating voltages.
 Electrostatic generators; especially in nuclear research.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDCGeneration Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Half-Wave Rectifier

 Characteristic parameters:

 For an oscillating voltage V(t), the arithmetic mean of the voltage is given by,
𝑇
´𝑉 = 1 ∫ 𝑉 ( 𝑡 ) 𝑑𝑡
 
T = Time period = 1/f
f = Frequency of oscillation
𝑇 0
 A periodically oscillating voltage deviates periodically from the mean value; i.e. a ripple is present,
with an amplitude,
1 Vmax = Maximum value of voltage
𝛿  𝑉 = ( 𝑉 𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑉 𝑚𝑖𝑛 )
2 Vmin = Minimum value of voltage

 Ripple factor is as follows, and generally should not exceed 0.05 for dc test voltage.

𝜹  𝑽 / 𝑽´

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Half-Wave Rectifier

 The diode will start conducting as long as point A is positive with respect
to point B; the capacitor is charged to Vmax.
 In the negative (non-conducting) half-cycle, the capacitor is discharged
through the load (current I flows through R).

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Half-Wave Rectifier

 If the capacitor is not connected, the output voltage across the load will
be as shown in fig. (a); i.e. with large ripple factor; i.e. /2.
 When the capacitor is used, the diode will stop conducting when the
potential at A falls below the peak because the supply voltage falls
below the capacitor voltage.
 Then, the capacitor would start discharging through the load.
PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering
 Half-Wave Rectifier

 From fig. (b), the capacitor supplies the load from E to F; EF is the
voltage curve over almost one period of the AC wave.
 Beyond F, the supply voltage is again greater than the capacitor voltage,
and hence the diode starts conducting, charging the capacitor to the peak
positive voltage.
 This period lasts much less than a half cycle and is shown as  T, where
 <<1.
 During this period a pulse current will be supplied by the source.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Half-Wave Rectifier

 The rectifier must have a peak inverse voltage rating of at least 2 Vmax.

 This is because the voltage across it would become almost 2Vmax when
point A attains the –Vmax with respect to B because capacitor voltage will
be nearly +Vmax, if voltage drop across the capacitor is insignificant.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Full-Wave Rectifier

 Each diode conducts for every half-cycle, thus the capacitor is charged
every half-cycle.
 The ripple amplitude is smaller since the ripple frequency is doubled.
 Average voltage for a full-wave rectifier is higher than that for the half-
wave rectifier, since,
𝑽
  𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 =𝑽 𝒎𝒂𝒙 − 𝜹 𝑽

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Full-Wave Rectifier

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Full-Wave Rectifier

 A full wave rectifier is a circuit, which converts an ac voltage into a

pulsating dc voltage using both half cycles of the applied ac voltage.

 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.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Full-Wave Rectifier

 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.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Voltage Doubler Circuit

 Both the full-wave and half-wave rectifiers produce DC voltages less

than Vmax.

 When higher DC voltages are needed, a voltage doubler or cascaded

rectifier doubler circuits are used.

 Voltage Doubler is a voltage multiplier circuit which has a voltage

multiplication factor of two.

 The circuit consists of only two diodes, two capacitors and an oscillating
AC input voltage.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Voltage Doubler Circuit

DC Voltage Doubler-Circuit

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Voltage Doubler Circuit

 In other words, V(positive peak) + V(negative peak) as on the negative

half-cycle, D1 charges C1 to Vp and on the positive half-cycle D2 adds
the AC peak voltage to Vp on C1 and transfers it all to C2.

 The voltage across capacitor, C2 discharges through the load ready for
the next half cycle.

 Then the voltage across capacitor, C2 can be calculated as: Vout = 2Vp,

(minus of course the voltage drops across the diodes used) where Vp is
the peak value of the input voltage.

 Note that this double output voltage is not instantaneous but increases
slowly on each input cycle, eventually settling to 2Vp.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Voltage Doubler Circuit

 Both the full-wave and half-wave rectifiers produce DC voltages less

than Vmax.

 When higher DC voltages are needed, a voltage doubler or cascaded

rectifier doubler circuits are used.

 Voltage Doubler is a voltage multiplier circuit which has a voltage

multiplication factor of two.

 The circuit consists of only two diodes, two capacitors and an oscillating
AC input voltage.


PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering
 Voltage Doubler Circuit

• The disadvantage of this is that it can be difficult to smooth out this large
ripple frequency in much the same way as for a half wave rectifier
circuit. Also, capacitor C2 must have a DC voltage rating at least twice
the value of the peak input voltage.

Voltage Curves of Greinacher Doubler Circuit under No-load

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering
 Voltage Doubler Circuit

 VA will oscillate between 0 to 2Vmax .

 V0 oscillates from –Vmax to +Vmax.
 The diode D1 starts conducting when D2 stops conducting at the instant
X.
 The capacitor C2 is charged to +2Vmax at the instant Y of the VA curve.
 At this instant D1 stops conducting.
 If there is no loading the output voltage will be constant at +2Vmax from
the Y instant onwards.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Voltage Doubler Circuit

 Under loaded condition, Vout will be less than Vmax due to:
 During the non-conduction period, C2 supplies the load current, and
the load voltage will be less than 2Vmax due to ripple.
 During each cycle, C1 replenishes C2, the charge discharged to the
load, thus causing VA never to attain 2Vmax, due to which C2 never
charges to 2Vmax.

Voltage Curves of Loaded Greinacher Doubler Circuit

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Cockroft-Walton Multipliers

 It is a cascaded circuit and is the most important method of the

generation of very high direct voltages.

A Two-stage Cascaded Circuit

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Cockroft-Walton Multipliers

 Under no-load, VA fluctuates between 0 and 2Vmax; when it reaches

2Vmax, VA’ becomes 2Vmax and remains constant.
 In the next half-cycle, when O’ becomes + wrt O, the potential of A falls,
therefore the potential of B also falls, becoming less than at A’.
 Hence C2 is charged through D2’ and VB becomes +2Vmax.
 In the next half-cycle, when O becomes + wrt O’, the potential of A rise,
therefore B also rises, becoming greater than VA’.
 Hence C2’ is charged through D2 to a voltage +2Vmax and the potential
of B’ becomes +4Vmax.
 The potential of A and B will continue to oscillate as the supply voltage
alternates, but A’’ and B’ will remain constant.
 The column OAB is called the oscillating column, while column O’A’B’
is called the smoothing column.

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering

 Cockroft-Walton Multipliers

n-stage Cockroft-walton Circuit

PE-481 (High Voltage Engineering) HVDC_Generation Department of Electrical (Power) Engineering