Cliiping Leading to Harmonics

[arunramnath]

I do know clipping leads to Harmonics. But it would be great if I can get to know further information on that (possibly Math). could not find that anywhere.

 

[barry]

It really depends on what the resulting waveform is. If you clipped a sinewave symmetrically, you'll get odd harmonics, but if you've got a complex waveform you will get not only odd harmonics, but intermodulation distortion as well.

 

[arunramnath]

It really depends on what the resulting waveform is. If you clipped a sinewave symmetrically, you'll get odd harmonics, but if you've got a complex waveform you will get not only odd harmonics, but intermodulation distortion as well.

Lets talk on a sine wave case. Lets say I am clipping on both the positive and negative peaks. Can you please explain me how this clipping brings out Odd harmonics in say 1K tone.

 

[barry]

Probably the best way to visualize this is to find the Fourier transform of the clipped signal. This will tell you the harmonic frequencies and their relative amplitudes.

 

[FvM]

The Falstad fourier series applet is demonstrating (among others) the effect of sine wave clipping. https://www.falstad.com/fourier/

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

Using superposition in the time domain can you visualize the signal that would need to be added to produce clipping to a sine wave?

It would be an opposite narrow rectangular pulse with a dome top to match the waveform peak. The shape of the he original waveform peak clipped is irrelevant and small compared to the size of the opposite tall pulse that emulates the clipped peak.

The repetition rate of this clipped signal will be the fundamental of all the harmonics generated.

As we know , a narrow pulse contains all the harmonics, dependent on the pulse width.