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

Repair the roads or fuel our cars?

[feedayeen]

Looks like MIT just gave us a little picklet, will we repair our roads or use the potholes to power our cars?

Re:Repair the roads or fuel our cars?

[daniorerio]

I wonder if the 10% improvement in fuel efficiency only counts for roads in Boston, how about cities with decent roads?

Re:Repair the roads or fuel our cars?

[virtue3]

... regenerative braking only matters in city situations. As, well, quite obviously, IT ONLY POWERS UP YOUR CAR WHEN YOU BRAKE.

Crappy highway conditions aside, you aren't pulling up to a stopsign/red light that often on the highway. THUS, the regenerative braking can't work.

bottom line, if we keep making little features that add up, we can make an extremely efficient vehicle. Braking and shock absorption have always been energy transfer mechanisms that have just turned energy into waste heat before, now, we can do something with that energy and that is amazing!

Perpetuum mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this actually legal since it hurts the oil industry ?

In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you are being silly. The most efficient way to travel would be a perfectly smooth road, one that didn't suck energy out of the vehicle, in the form of a bump, in the first place.

To truly express the dilemma, you have to weigh the amount of energy used to maintain a smooth road versus the new found energy return from these shocks.

Re:In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamic

[Ogive17]

I take it you don't live in a cold weather climate or in a large city. Snow/ice + salt + plows = pot holes. Large cities have notoriously bad roads, it's too hard to repair them with so much traffic.

And it's not just bumpy roads that shocks help with. Every time you turn a corner the shocks are used to keep the car stable.

Personally, I think it's a brilliant idea. The easiest way to become more efficient is to turn the wasted energy into something useful.

Re:Shock absorbers are just a part of the equation

[fprintf]

Generally speaking you have more handling and fuel performance issues with having too *little* air in the tires. 27% of cars, according to the US DOT, have at least one underinflated tire.

http://www.dot.gov/affairs/nhtsa4601.htm

So what's the problem? Well, as you say, you get a harsher ride from an overinflated tire, but you get far many more problems with underinflation, which is probably far more common. Some of those problems include poor braking, slow steering, poor handling/road grip, and worse fuel economy... worse than can be made up by funky new regenerative shocks.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/225/could-we-conserve-gasoline-by-putting-more-air-in-our-tires

I know lots of people made fun of Barack Obama during the Presidential campaign for his plea to check the tire pressures, but the reality is that drivers the world over could save millions of gallons of oil annually by simply keeping tires inflated properly. In cold climates this also means double checking the pressures when the outside temperature drops by 10 degrees.

Better to pump up the tires than not.

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.

Re:I already said that...

[drinkypoo]

I've been saying for 5 years now that we should use all the available energy to power electric cars.

I've been saying it for ten! Where the fuck have you been?

I think that this is the way of the future, and MIT did one step.

Now if they take one step back, and one step forward, and one step back... they're doing the cha-cha.

On my bed

[mrops]

Wonder if I can have this on my bed.

Honey, I know you have a headache, but think of the planet.

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