MIT Undergrads Develop Energy-Generating Shock Absorbers : Gas 2.0 MIT undergraduates have created a regenerative shock absorber that can increase vehicle fuel efficiency by 10 percent. Not only does this conserve energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat, it also reportedly results in a smoother ride than conventional shocks. The team is moving quickly to commercialize the technology, initially focusing on organizations with fleets of heavy vehicles, such as the military. The reason: large vehicles are particularly well-suited to shock absorber power generation. In 6-shock heavy trucks, each absorber can generate as much a 1 kW of power on standard roads — reportedly enough to displace the large alternator load in these vehicles, and even run accessory devices...
Sounds like it is a different technology or different team totally that was discussed in this article which isn't that old: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/57982-promising-new-shock-absorber-technology.html Nice to see potential new technology that could further help hybrids and plug-ins down the road...
Strange. When I entered the thread title, no similar existing threads popped up. Ah well, apologies for the dup.
I read the other one very and i mean very quickly when posting the link but saw different schools mentioned as doing the research... So if they are different then hey 2 different techs at once and if they are the same sorry for not reading better.
Definitely two different schools (MIT vs Tufts). But the article I posted didn't have as much technical information as yours. Looks like the cat is out of the bag. If the military gets involved, this technology could become mainstream sooner rather than later. Not sure how valuable it would be in lighter vehicles such as the Prius.
I thought of this idea about six months ago while brainstorming ways to generate electricity from any movement on a vehicle. I thougth of using solenoids in addition to the traditional struts and springs; however I decided against the idea after considering the fact that the whole point of a shock absorber is to return back to it's original position (which would require as much energy storage and return as possible). For example, if you go over a bump and your shocks compress four inches, your shocks need to return back those four inches, otherwise, after going over a series of bumps, you will be driving a low-rider with permanently-bottomed-out shocks. Well, if the MIT guys can figure out some modification to this concept that I couldn't come up with in my brainstorming, I would be more than glad to smile upon it. ANYTHING that will get us off of foreign petroleum !!!!
Nothing in this world is new. I saw a video about a pom who is a bit of an inventor, made a car that ran on pig poo and a bike powered by bumps on the road, or rather assisted by bumps on the road. I need these shockers on Adelaide roads, I'd pick up 0.4L/100km with them.
