Capturing Energy from the Shocks to Use for the Car

Ithaka has a frequent litany about the wasted energy in using petroleum fuel to power an automobile. Much of it is obvious waste such as the heat coming off the motor but there is more.  Overcoming obstacles in the roads like bumps adds nothing to the vehicle's forward motion and it costs fuel to do it but there is a different kind of motion since the shock absorber moves up and down.  That's the kinetic energy of motion the enterprising engineer hopes to capture.  (Science Daily:  Breakthrough in harvesting energy from automotive shock absorbers)

The harvested energy isn't 'free' because it took fuel to overcome the bump so maybe it's more accurate to call it recovered energy from work which did not move the vehicle forward.  All the motion of the shock absorbers must be captured to recover at least some of the efficiency of the burning of the fuel.

Ruichen Wang carried out the project to obtain his doctorate at the University and has published his findings. The article, in the journal Energies, is titled Modelling, Testing and Analysis of a Regenerative Hydraulic Shock System. It provides a summary of current progress in the field of vehicle energy harvesting and a detailed account of the theory and the practical development of his device, designed for installation in a heavy good vehicle.

- Science Daily

Dr Wang earned his PhD by this research but this was only one aspect of the research since he also built a full-size working prototype to prove his point.  Hat tip, Dr Wang.

Ruichen Wang with the prototype.

Credit: Image courtesy of University of Huddersfield

- Science Daily

Dr Wang provides yet another case study in the principle Nerds Become Hot After High School and especially when they invent things potentially worth millions since this type of energy reclamation may even work for train cars.

After working on the mathematics, computational analysis and design of his device, Dr Wang personally constructed his full-size, ready-to-test prototype (pictured right) -- a demonstration of practical engineering skills that impressed his supervisor Professor Ball.

"It has resulted in is a truly realisable application for energy recovery from a typical road vehicle. Ruichen developed a theoretical predictive model and carried out the empirical testing, and the two of them correlate beautifully," he added.

Harvested energy can be used for any auxiliary purpose in a vehicle, said Professor Ball, and in hybrids it could recharge the electric motor.

- Science Daily

In other words, he saw the idea in his head, he worked out the physics, and then he fuckin' built it.  Now that's sciencing even The Martian would appreciate.  (Ref:  "The Martian" starring Matt Damon who gave us the line, "I'm really going to have to science the shit out of this."  From that point forward, 'science' was a verb.)

Maybe you think, 'This is grand since I really need shocks at five hundred per to add two grand to the cost of a new car.'

It's true he looks to an industrial partner to carry this forward but somewhere in this process Dr Wang will, presumably, obtain a patent.  The right to use his work can then be licensed and all the manufacturers will want it because it will give them an edge over those which don't use it.  This is where a whole lot of innocent nerds hit the rocks and it's just the same as with music when you have a good idea but the big bucks from it go to everyone else.  Good luck to you, Dr Wang.

Note: anticipating this will be able to change the battery doesn't seem to make sense since that will, in effect, be getting energy for free if that works and the Laws of Thermodynamics hate that.  There's energy to move the car forward and some of that energy is wasted on moving the car up and down on bumps.  Recovering the up and down energy won't match the energy used to move the car horizontally since nothing is recovered when the vehicle is on level ground.

Dr Ball may be trying to make that point since a hybrid isn't driven entirely by the electric motor so part of the energy being captured comes from the gas-fueled motor.  Either way, there's no chance of recovering all the energy expended since most of it isn't used to get over bumps.  However, recovering any of it could result in substantial savings in fuel and / or electricity costs for the owner.