Design of anti-vibration mounting for 140A class alternator for vehicles

The alternator is a core component of modern vehicles that supplies power to all the electrical equipment when the engine is running. It is fitted to the engine bracket with long bolts going through the frame mountings. Due to the strong vibration from the engine, it is extremely important to improve its anti-vibration performance to extend the life of the alternator. This study presents a new anti-vibration mounting design for the alternator frame based on a 140A class alternator used in a best-selling sport utility vehicle (SUV). In this study, UG (unigraphics NX) was used to generate 3D models of the alternator and the finite element analysis software ABAQUS was used to simulate the vibration experiment. Then through a series of verification experiments, results were obtained which show that the new separated mounting design has obvious improvements in terms of the anti-vibration characteristic, as compared to the current design. The current work will be used for resonance reduction during design stages in future works.