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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.

FlexRay is an emerging communication technology used within Automotive In-Vehicle networking applications. However consideration of environmental variations, as well as device and overall system tolerances make development of a robust FlexRay network a daunting task. Even if the hardware prototype was available it may not be practical nor possible, to test and measure all the possible variations of network performance over this large multidimensional parameter space. But if simulation via a virtual hardware prototype accurately captured the FlexRay physical layer implementation concept, worst-case scenarios and corner cases could be efficiently investigated in face of any random or user selected combination of device and system variations. For simulation to be a viable option, the models for all the network components need to be available.