MIT Team Creates Shock That Recharges Your Car

An anonymous reader writes "If you had a GenShock, you may not mind those potholes in the road any longer because this new prototype shock actually harvests energy from bumps in the road to save on fuel. A team of students at MIT have invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smooths the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. Senior Shakeel Avadhany and his teammates say they can produce up to a 10 percent improvement in overall vehicle fuel efficiency by using the regenerative shock absorbers. They also already have a lot of interest in their design, specifically the company that builds Humvees for the army are already planning to install them in its next version of the Humvee."

Comments

Re:Sounds heavy to me

[Locklin]

I wouldn't be surprised to see tractor-trailers going hybrid soon. Fuel economy is a HUGE factor for trucking, and they require large engines to maintain speed up large inclines. Additionally, all that weight is very hard to slow down on declines -producing a lot of wear on brakes and power-train (engine breaks). Trains already do it, trucks are next.

You'd be surprised how much shocks move

[DG]

I did a ton of shock development as part of my race car engineering job.

We had sensors on the suspension to directly measure suspension travel, with a view towards measuring suspension velocity as part of shock development.

Even on what feels like a perfectly smooth track, there's still a lot of humping and bumping going on.

See http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets6.html for example graphs of suspension velocity pulled right off the car.

DG