Power harvesting shock absorbers increase mpg by 10%

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/shock-absorbers-0209.html

by vaksel • 17 years ago

23 15 17 years ago

web.mit.edu

tjic• 17 years ago

> "This is a disruptive technology," Anderson says. "It's a game-changer."

It certainly is a slick hack, but "disruptive technology"?

...I do not think that that word means what you think it means...

boredguy8• 17 years ago

Of course it does: this is Industry 2.0!

gravitycop• 17 years ago

Avadhany [...] adds, "it is a completely new paradigm of damping."

The article neglected to mention the similar Bose [Amar G.; MIT 1951] system, which also generates electricity: http://www.bose.com/learning/project_sound/bose_suspension.j...

marketer• 17 years ago

This is the same Zack Anderson that built the warcart (http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/warcart.html) and created the fiasco with the charlie tickets. He is quite an impressive hacker.

Shamiq• 17 years ago

I remember tossing this idea at a friend, and being told that someone was probably already working on it. I didn't have the drive and/or to follow up on it anyway, but it's nice seeing a good idea being executed.

tocomment3• 17 years ago

I don't believe the 10% number. I would think energy lost to vibration and lateral motion would be negligible compared to air resistance, tire friction, etc.

Jebdm• 17 years ago

It did say "up to 10%", which I think is fairly believable since they were testing with large vehicles.

tocomment3• 17 years ago

You'd think there would be some back of the envelope physics we could do. Anyone want to jump in?

Here's a start .. maybe

A bumpy road only uses extra energy because the bumps cause the vehicle to move upwards at the expense of its forward momentum. This invention would in the best case be able to recapture that energy and thus simulate being on a perfectly smooth road. So the most power it could produce would be the potential energy gained by raising a vehicle N cm off the ground every M seconds. N, and M would be affected by speed, and road bumpiness.

dattaway• 17 years ago

Only problem is hydraulics aren't very efficient and waste much heat. They claimed a recovery of 1 kilowatt, which is just over one horsepower (746 watts by definition.)

Now if that vehicle has a 200 horsepower gas engine and is boosted by a 1 horsepower, a 10% claim might be stretching it. An older generation Toyota Prius has a 10 horsepower electric motor, which can propel it over 30 mph. One horsepower might be good for about 5 mph. I suppose there might be unusual driving conditions that might realize a 10% increase in mpg, but not in our world.

DTrejo• 17 years ago

My buddy lives down the hall from Zack Anderson and told me about this.

I remember chuckling when I heard that Zack parked his hummer w/ shocks in a handicapped spot. He got some ugly glares.

Gonsalu• 17 years ago

Hmmm. Another piece of technology which increases the cost when buying the car, increases the cost when you need to replace it, for a marginal increase in efficiency (up to 10% -- more likely to be ~2%, and on urban routes, I'm not betting on those gains on the highway).

Just like xenon headlights, huge starter engines for fast start-stop times, complex injection systems, etc, these increase the costs of building and maintenance, for little benefit, and huge profits for the auto industry.

When do we get mass-produced electric engines already?! They're not as complex as Otto engines (thus lower maintenance costs), so when do we start producing them in large scale to get lower prices?

delackner• 17 years ago

The code to detect reposts clearly needs updating. If a story submitted contains a link to a previous post, shouldn't that raise a red flag?

Power harvesting shock absorbers increase mpg by 10%

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