Lost kinetic energy on cars will now be recovered

Aug 4, 2015 17:00 GMT  ·  By

Although cars account for 40 percent of America's fuel consumption, thanks to air drag and road resistance, only 10 to 16 percent of a car's fuel consumption is used for driving.

In response to such issues, engineers at Virgina Tech College of Engineering came with a solution: to harvest energy from the car's suspensions.

It appears that, if kinetic energy produced by the car is used wisely through shock absorbers, it may amount to a total of about 100 - 400 watts of energy on normal roads, and even greater energy potential on rougher roads. Wasted heat given off by the engine and the kinetic energy absorbed when breaking, or any vibrational energy, could easily be "harvested" by said shock absorbers and turned back into energy readily available.

All the lost kinetic energy could now be recovered

Compared to how much energy a car wastes on normal roads, a single cellphone call consumes approximately 1 watt of energy. So, the amount of energy shock absorbers would be able to provide corresponds to an increase in fuel efficiency of between 1 and 5 percent, which would add up to an annual fuel savings of $13 billion to $19 billion.

According to Phys.org, the guys at Virginia Tech plan to convert vertical vibrations of the suspension into rotational motion that will turn a generator, which will in turn send current to the car's battery or electrical devices, reducing drastically the demand to the alternator. Based on a unique set of gears, it allows motion in both directions to be converted into electricity for the generator to double the energy recovered from kinetic car movement.

However, as of now, the new shock absorbers together with the generator itself won't work properly with cars that aren't driven long roads, as the combination would need enough energy gathered on long roads to actually double the power given by the default engine alternator.

To improve performance, the Virginia Tech researchers want to adapt a self-powered semi-active control: a microprocessor will sense the vehicle conditions and adjust the suspension settings accordingly, delivering the smoothest ride while harvesting the greatest amount of energy.