Concepedia

A New Design for Automotive Alternators

2000 · 29 citations · 10 references

TL;DR

The study presents a new alternator design that boosts peak and average power output and efficiency, and introduces dual‑output extensions such as 42/14 V. The design achieves these gains through tight load‑dump transient suppression, jump‑charging capability, and a scalable architecture that supports dual‑output configurations. Experimental tests confirm the power and efficiency improvements, additional high‑voltage performance gains, and that the technology remains simple, low‑cost, and compatible with current manufacturing.

Abstract

This paper introduces a new design for alternator systems that provides dramatic increases in peak and average power output from a conventional Lundell alternator, along with substantial improvements in efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate these capability improvements. Additional performance and functionality improvements of particular value for highvoltage (e.g., 42 V) alternators are also demonstrated. Tight load-dump transient suppression can be achieved using this new design and the alternator system can be used to implement jump charging (the charging of the high-voltage system battery from a low-voltage source). Dual-output extensions of the technique (e.g., 42/14 V) are also introduced. The new technology preserves the simplicity and low cost of conventional alternator designs, and can be implemented within the existing manufacturing infrastructure.