Harmonic analysis of a single-phase rectifier with a DC filter capacitor

A single-phase diode bridge rectifier with a filter capacitor on the dc side is often employed to convert ac input into a dc voltage. The input current of the rectifier contains harmonic currents which cause undesirable power line effects. Recently, a method using the time domain analysis has been proposed to calculate the harmonic currents of rectifier considering noninfinite capacitance, i.e., non-zero dc side impedance. This method is very accurate, but it requires a long computing time and a complicated algorithm. This paper proposes a new method that makes it possible to easily calculate the harmonic currents taking into account the effects of the ac and dc side impedances of rectifier. The proposed method, which is based on the frequency domain method, can be executed only with the algebraic computation, and its accuracy is quite high. The validity of the proposed method is also demonstrated by comparison with the results of time simulation.