Saturable Reactor

In electrical engineering world a saturable reactor is a special type of inductor where the magnetic core are often deliberately saturated by an instantaneous current in a very control winding. Once saturated, the inductance of the saturable reactor drops dramatically.source

Single core Saturable Reactor

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Double Core Reactor

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Formation Method / Layout

It consists of two or more laminated cores of steel and in appearance it looks like a Transformer . One of the winding is connected to the DC source along with a variable resistance. The DC current through that winding forms the input signal. The other winding is in series with a load and is connected to an AC supply Voltage .
The dc current in the dc coil controls the ac current that can flow through the ac coil and load. So the device can work as amplifier.

Working Principle

Fig (b) shows a reactor having single core and only one ac winding . During the half cycle of a ac supply when terminal B is positive , current flows in the ac coil. It produces a counter clockwise magnetic flux in the core . Later half cycle , the reversal of direction of flux through the ac coil generates an ac voltage at the terminals of the dc coil.

Symbol

Applications

1. It is used as a low gain amplifier

2. By integrating with rectifiers it can be used as magnetic amplifier

Drawbacks

It is not widely used because the ac coil flux produces e.m.f in d.c coil which destroys the battery and coil itself

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