The regenerative shock absorber....

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Kowalski
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The regenerative shock absorber....

Post by Kowalski »

I found this article quite interesting...

http://techfragments.com/news/415/Tech/ ... r_Car.html

It talks about harvesting energy from shock absorbers, by using a small hydraulic turbine to replace the damping element in shock absorbers, recovering some of the energy that a car loses when it hits bumps in the road. I got to thinking that this is the sort of thing that would easilly screw between a Xantia sphere and a Xantia strut.

Obviously you're not going to recover any energy you didn't already put into the car by burning fuel, but they are talking about being able to improve fuel efficiency by 10%....
ellevie
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Post by ellevie »

Interesting, I wonder if it would adversely affect the suspension dynamics.

The brakes waste quite a lot of energy as evidenced by the amount of heat they generate --- I can't say as I've ever noticed the spheres getting hot. :lol:

Regenerative electromagnetic braking has been around for a while and I believe the Swiss were working on a bus which used gyrating cylinders to harness and store energy from the brakes especially relevant in Switzerland where it can be quite hilly in places. Instead of banks of batteries they could have a Gyro Bank. :lol:
David

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