Motor vehicle alternator

摘要

A conventional full wave diode bridge of an alternator (106) is replaced with a full wave controlled rectifier bridge (108) having controlled switches in place of diodes. Phase control is performed by the switches of the controlled rectifier bridge to pre-empt natural commutation and shift the phase of the alternator phase voltages relative to the phase currents. The phase angle control disrupts the normal unity power factor operation of the alternator and causes additional reactive current flow in a three phase stator winding (116) of the alternator to source the controlled rectifier bridge (108). The result is that for the same operating conditions the controlled switches of the controlled rectifier bridge boost output from the alternator by from 40% to 60%. <IMAGE>