Photo courtesy / Zack Anderson
With the recent hike in gas prices, fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles are becoming more and more desirable. The current generation of hybrid vehicles uses a combination of battery power and internal combustion to power the vehicle. Many of these vehicles also revamp some of their standard systems to help recover some of the energy lost during driving, helping make the vehicle even more efficient. One example of this is regenerative braking, which generates energy from the braking process and pumps that energy back to the battery.
A group of MIT undergraduates have come up with another way to recover lost energy from a very unlikely source: the shock absorbers. The team constructed a new type of shock absorber that uses hydraulics hooked up to a turbine and a generator. When the vehicle goes over bumps in the road, fluid is forced through the turbine and generates energy, which is used to recharge a battery. The hydraulics are also actively monitored to ensure optimal dampening. This creates a smoother ride than normal shock absorbers, while still producing energy.
In a real-world test, they outfitted a ‘6-shock heavy truck’ with their prototype shock absorbers and found that “…each shock absorber could generate up to an average of 1 kW on a standard road -- enough power to completely displace the large alternator load in heavy trucks and military vehicles…” . They also estimate that the shock absorbers could produce up to a 10 percent increase in fuel efficiency. This has drawn attention from both truck manufacturers and the military. Most notibly, the company that makes Humvees for the US military is excited enough that they lent the team a vehicle for testing.
The team hopes to have a fine-tuned version completed by this summer and start talking to potential customers soon after.
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