Electrical – Reactive power in single phase controlled full wave bridge rectifier

bridge-rectifierfull-bridgescrsingle-phase

How to calculate the reactive power,Q (VAR) in single phase controlled full wave bridge rectifier with only R-load? The sample observations of the experiment are given in the image. But I am wondering how does reactive power exist in case of pure resistive load!
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Best Answer

It the situation described, there is no reactive power in the usual sense of reactive power. The harmonic currents cause reactive volt-amperers in the sense that little or no real power is transferred by the harmonic current. If the source voltage is a power frequency sine wave with only a little distortion, there is little or no source voltage at the harmonic frequencies. If current of one frequency is multiplied by a voltage of another frequency, there is no resulting real power. There is a periodic waveform containing both frequencies but the average of that waveform is zero.

In vector terms, if real power is on the X axis and reactive volt-amperes are on the Y axis, harmonic volt-amperes are on the Z axis. Harmonic volt-amperes are not the same as reactive-volt-amperes, the two can not be added algebraically.

I believe that the Q(VAR) data in your table is the square root of the sum of the squares of the RMS harmonic currents multiplied by the RMS voltage.