Assume the input voltage is a sinewave. How does the voltage/current across the resistor R change with variance of inductivity L? If I we assume L -> inf, what kind of waveform would we get at the output?
If we assume L is very high that means the inductive reactance is very high, in return the voltage drop across the resistor should be very low.
This is what I got after simulating with L=100H, R=5Ohms and a Vin=10V*sin(wt) with a frequency of 1kHz. Blue is voltage across inductor, green is voltage across resistor, red is current.
so my initial assumption seems to be correct but what does the diode do in this circuit? The current running through the inductor gets cut off abruptly after half a cycle but the voltage seems to be the same wave form as the input up until a point where it goes to zero and stays there until the diode is forward biased again.
How exactly is anything here smoother? From what I understood, I could have used a capacitor parallel to the resistor to smoothe the output voltage (which is what I expected this circuit to do) so why doesnt this circuit do the same?