Cause, effects, and mitigation of ripple from rectifiers

All rectifiers produce an output voltage that has ripple superimposed on the DC. This varies in magnitude, waveform, and frequency for different rectifiers. Similarly, the strategy used to limit ripple current going to the load varies. Adverse effects of this ripple include possible reduced productivity or process equipment life, interference with process instrumentation, electromagnetic coupling with nearby structures resulting in heating of the structures and increased losses, and audible noise emitted from bus bars, etc. This paper explores these issues and ways to mitigate them. It also relates this to the selection of a phase control or chopper rectifier for a particular application.