Many household electrical devices require electrical current that flows in a single direction through the circuit; however transporting direct current through the power lines has several disadvantages compared to alternating current, AC. For the electricity found in power outlets to be used in DC-circuits, a rectifier can be used.

A new downloadable Modelica example on the SystemModeler site shows one such set-up, the full-wave bridge rectifier. The full-wave bridge rectifier contains four forward biased diodes. Depending on the polarity of the source, the current will flow through two of the diodes. This will cause the current to enter the DC-side only through the positive side, regardless of the source polarity. The model uses a transformer to decrease the voltage on the AC side. The voltage can also be changed on the DC-side, incorporating such components as the boost converter and buck converter.

SystemModeler features dynamical graphics for diagrams that can help us better understand the electrical circuit. Lines drawn in the diagram view (as well as other diagram objects, such as components) can be set to be conditionally shown based on an expression:

The dynamic graphics expressions can then be used to make an animation of the diagram which can be plotted together with a graph of the output voltage and source voltage (after transformation):

Download the model here and try it for yourself!