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Reduction of alternator noise has become an increasingly important task in automotive industry as requirements for passenger compartment comfort increase, and other components such as the engine, exhaust system, etc. are made quieter. However, the aim of this study is to identify the noise sources of a numbers of alternator bands and to develop design guidelines to reduce the overall noise levels sacrificing the specified performance. With these guidelines, design engineers can reduce alternator noise effectively. To identify mechanical, aerodynamic and electromagnetic noise generation mechanisms, the alternator was reconfigured in many different ways, so as to separate each individual noise source. Noise generated by each configuration running at different speeds was measured, and its characteristics were analyzed. A special test stand was designed and fabricated, and tests were conducted in the automotive laboratory.

Conventional maintenance approaches, as reparative and preventive maintenance, are not enough to fulfill the needs of vehicle systems safely, costly and high accessibility. A new strategy based on measuring of systems degradation through a prognostic process is required. The recent advances in technology provide a combination of model-based diagnosis and prognosis of systems, leading to a condition-based maintenance and augmented availability of systems. With a precise simulation model of a system, diagnostics and prognostics can be mounted alongside with the system aims. The work presented here is to develop an integrated prognostic process based on both, data collected from model-based simulations under nominal and degraded conditions, and measuring output signals of vehicle systems to determine their elements degradation coefficients. A vehicle suspension system uses in the paper as an application to foretell by events the weakness of its elements using the degradation measure.

A vehicle service station is a complex system consisting of several interacting sub-systems. The two major subsystems are the workshop and store of spare parts. While workshop is the driving force to achieve the main goals of the station, spare parts store also has a significant impact on the service station performance. Due to the fast pace advancement in vehicle expert diagnostic systems (e.g. On-and Off-Board Diagnostics) and telecommunication capabilities, the fault code can automatically be generated and sent with a priority degree to vehicle service station. The service station will -in turn- analyze the fault codes and then execute the necessary actions. Like all commercial projects, a vehicle service station is continually trying to maximize the total income, while satisfying the customer demands and the service quality. The work done will be limited by the availability of associated budget, workforce, time for different shifts, equipment, and materials.