Filed under: Emerging Technologies
Capturing more kinetic energy through regenerative dampers
A vehicle in motion has a lot of energy passing through it various ways. The limited capacity of electro-chemical batteries means engineers have to find any way they can to reduce wasted energy and recapture as much as possible. The primary means of recapturing energy up until now has been regenerative braking, where the wheels turn the motor during deceleration causing it to charge the battery.
Tufts University engineering professors Ronald Goldner and Peter Zerigian have developed a regenerative shock absorber that harnesses the kinetic energy of the wheels' vertical motions as they follow the contour of the road. Traditional dampers use the resistance of a viscous fluid flowing through orifices to dampen out the motions as wheels traverse bumps and potholes. This new configuration would put a magnet stack within stator windings and use the resistance provided by an electromagnetic field to achieve the same effect. Such a system could provide continuously variable damping while providing power instead of consuming it.
A similar concept was developed several years ago by Pennsylvania man David Oxenreider. Electric Truck LLC has apparently licensed the commercial rights to the Tufts design, although there is no indication when we might see it on the road.
[Source: GizMag]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luke 7:44PM (1/02/2009)
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/11/14/x-prize-chevy-blazer-is-back-now-with-regenerative-shocks/
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BoneHeadOtto 10:07PM (1/02/2009)
My friends and i have been throwing around this idea since the early 90's. I am so glad someone is finally doing this. Shocks are designed to absorb energy. What better device for capturing it than shocks.
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Mike!!ekiM 10:40PM (1/02/2009)
This is just the beginning. Version 1.1 of the electric car era.
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gorr 11:28PM (1/02/2009)
I will be interrested to buy that for my neon 2005 5 speeds if it offer a better ride because the shocks on my neon are very cheap. It can be programmed for smootness, medium-firm, sport. It can adapt to curves and breaking. Calibration can be done by the driver with buttons on the dash or a usb computer port. Some corvette have a flexible and programmable system like this but done with magnetic fluid in the shocks instead but they don't sale kit for my neon.
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teddy 3:53AM (1/03/2009)
I though that Bose (?) has already developped such electric shocks. However they were stressing the better stability of the car and not really energy harvesting. Big miss?
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Phil L. 10:18AM (1/03/2009)
Bose was trying to address the limitations of static springs by replacing both the shock *and* spring by electronically-controlled elements. Their system had to absorb shocks - and *lift* the car as needed, so it consumed quite a bit of power. More info:
http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0501_bosesuspension/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension
vfx 10:18AM (1/03/2009)
Here is the Bose story.
27 years in secret and 100 million dollars.
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N59/bose.html
Here is the technology with pictures:
http://www.siliconeer.com/past_issues/2005/january2005.html#Anchor--MA-32328
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Chris of Dangerous Logic 2:19PM (1/03/2009)
"This new configuration would put a magnet stack within stator windings and use the resistance provided by an electromagnetic field to achieve the same effect. Such a system could provide continuously variable damping while providing power instead of consuming it."
I know this is all real science and whatnot, but I couldn't help but think of Rockwell Automation's Retroincabulator ( http://www.google.com/search?q=retroincabulator ) when I read it.
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