What is the role of inductor characteristics in smoothing rectified AC current?

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Matt Carver
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hi I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me out; which inductor characteristic is utilised in the smoothing of rectified ac current
 
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Inductance, Not sure what other characteristics there are?
 
Inductors tend to resist any change in current flow. That's why, at the output of the rectifier, besides the parallel mounted filtering capacitor you can use a series inductor (choke) for a better filtering.
 
Integral said:
Inductance, Not sure what other characteristics there are?

Probably he was referring to their parasitic parallel capacitance and their DC resistance (DCR). Those other characteristics often need to be taken into account. In the case of the OP, probably only the DCR would matter, since you don't want to throw away too much power in the current ripple smoothing function, so you need to use a physically large enough inductor to handle the ripple current without dropping much voltage across the DCR.

Oh yeah, and the inductor has to be physically large enough not to saturate due to the current. So I guess that makes 4 total characteristics of the inductor:

Inductance L
DCR
Parallel Capacitance Cp
Saturation Current Isat