Electrothermal Behavior of a Complete Alternator Assembly within a Battery Charging System using Virtual Prototyping Techniques

This paper illustrates the usage of virtual prototyping to observe the impact of self heating thermal effects on the performance of a complete claw pole alternator assembly. A typical automotive alternator is a subsystem that consists of an electromechanical rotor/stator assembly with electrical rectification and regulation components. Often in literature, thermal effects, if considered, remain exclusive to the alternator core, and do not effectively tie together the impact on other components of the alternator assembly. The scope of this work considers the implementation of a more detailed subsystem of electro-thermal components, rectifiers and a regulator within the context of a software implementation of an electro-mechanical alternator assembly. Alternator measurements, virtual prototype characterization, and validation via simulation comparisons with physical measurements are also discussed. Robust engineering techniques are proposed to permit optimization of the alternator design within the scope of a battery charging system. The charging system, with thermal sensitive lead-acid battery, embraces an appropriate number of realistic loads typical of an automotive vehicle, with some self heating wire harness considerations.