A novel three-phase diode rectifier with sinusoidal input current

Various nonlinear semiconductor circuits have been used in consumer electronics and industrial electronics. It is well known that rectifier circuits such as these can generate various harmonics within the power system. Because of this, several different power factor correction circuits have been proposed and studied. These methods are designed to improve the input current to a sinusoidal waveform by using switching devices, and they therefore degrade the cost performance. From this point of view, it is also appropriate to discuss harmonic reduction methods that do not use switching devices. This paper proposes a novel three-phase rectifier circuit for power factor correction that operates without switching devices, and whose input current waveform is almost sinusoidal. Since it does not make use of any switching devices, this solution avoids any losses and noise due to switching. In addition, since it is also unnecessary to employ a complicated driving circuit, it is favorable in terms of cost performance. The effectiveness of this circuit is confirmed by simulation and experiment.