1. An alternating-current component superimposed on a direct-current component resulting in variations in the instantaneous value of a unidirectional current or voltage. The term is particularly applied to the output of a rectifier. The frequency of the a.c. component is the ripple frequency; for a full-wave rectifier it is twice the frequency of the input signal.
The magnitude of the ripple is given by the ratio of the root-mean-square value of the a.c. component to the mean value of the total and is usually expressed as a percentage. This is known as the ripple factor. Some form of smoothing circuit or regulator is normally used in order to reduce the amount of ripple present on the output of a rectifier, generator, etc.