Shock Absorber Tools

Shock absorber generates electricity when it hits a bump

Researchers from Stony Brook University on Long Island have found that shock absorbers can help power your car by converting the up-and-down motion to electricity rather than heat. They’d generate 100-400 watts at highway speeds, up to 1,600 watts on bumpy roads, and have the potential to increase fuel economy by 1-4% in regular cars and up to 8% in hybrids. As a bonus, the shocks might provide a smoother ride if and when they become commercially available.

Traditional mechanical shock absorbers are tubes with oil inside and a plate in the middle with little holes. Your car hits a bump, the oil is forced through orifices (holes in the plate) to the other side of the tube, then back when the car rebounds from the bump. That smooths out the ride. All the energy is dissipated as heat, so much that if you touched the shocks after a fast ride on a bumpy road, you’d burn your hand. The Stony Brook shocks, created by Professor Lei Zuo and graduate students Xiudong Tang and Zachary Brindak, with funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), convert the energy to electricity instead. Zuo and team also have patents on two kinds of shock absorbers: linear shocks and rotational shocks.

The linear shock comprises a small magnetic tube with high flux intensity (paging Captain Kirk?) that slides inside a larger hollow tube. The rotational shock turns and uses what the developers call a motion magnification mechanism. The motion is converted to electricity. In either case, on a mid-size passenger car the shock absorbers would generate 100-400 watts on good to average roads (what’s called Class B and Class C roads) and up to four times as much on rough roads (Class D). Used on trucks, off-road vehicles, and railroad cars, you’d get a return of 1-10 kilowatts, or 1,000-10,000 watts. Zuo, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at SUNY Stony Brook, says the nature of the shocks means the car or the driver could change suspension damping (sporty ride, limo ride) and reduce vibration from the road.

The harvested energy recharges the car’s battery and powers the car’s electronics, which the researchers say draws 250-350 watts “with optional electronic systems turned off.” A car alternator typically provides 500-600 watts, although that figure is creeping up as cars use more power, especially the ones with electric power steering and electric, not belt-driven, air conditioning. A car engine rated at 200 hp would be rated at about 150 kilowatts. The higher mpg gain for hybrids is because they have bigger batteries and electric motors as well as combustion engines. Hybrids would get better mpg improvements at highway speeds because they could use their electric motors to take some of the load off the combustions engines.

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