Abstract
In recent years, there has been a lot of work related to Energy Harvesting Shock Absorbers (EHSA). These devices harvest energy from the movement of the vehicle’s shock absorbers caused by road roughness, braking, acceleration and turning. There are different technologies that can be used in these systems, but it is not clear which would be the best option if you want to replace a conventional shock absorber with an EHSA. This article presents a methodology to compare the performance of different EHSA technologies that can replace a shock absorber with a given damping coefficient. The methodology allows to include different analysis options, including different types of driving cycles, computer vehicle models, input signals and road types. The article tests the methodology in selecting the optimal EHSA technology for a particular shock absorber and vehicle, optimizing at the same time energy recovery. In addition, a study of parameters in each type of technology is included to analyze its influence on the final objective. In the example analyzed, the EHSA technology with a rack and pinion system turned out to be the best. The proposed methodology can be extrapolated to other case studies and design objectives.
Highlights
Given the paradigm of the world’s increasing energy needs and environmental problems due to pollution, reducing energy consumption, or improving the efficiency of existing or new systems is a must
We find Energy Harvesting Shock Absorbers (EHSA) systems applied to various models of different degrees of freedom (DOF), F
The Ball-Screw Energy Harvesting Shock Absorber (BS-EHSA) system, which is defined as a linear actuator that transforms the linear movement into angular, is characterized by handling pitch angles from 1 to 10 degrees, friction coefficients from 0.01 to 0.003 that accounts for efficiencies above 90% [34]
Summary
Given the paradigm of the world’s increasing energy needs and environmental problems due to pollution, reducing energy consumption, or improving the efficiency of existing or new systems is a must. Mechanical efficiency is reduced by increasing the input frequency as shown by Zhongjie Li [9] From these works, it can be concluded that the use of standardized driving cycles is a good approximation to estimate the energy recovered, which can be improved by including the vertical dynamics of the vehicle and the turns. This paper proposes a methodology that allows the comparison of results obtained through different technologies and EHSA designs With this methodology, the comparative criteria of different EHSA prototypes for energy recovery are standardized, in a structured and agile way, based on different driving cycle conditions, different types of roads (both urban and highway), and with different driving parameters and vehicle characteristics.
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