Zack Anderson, a senior in electrical engineering and computer sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helped create GenShock, seen here being installed on a Humvee.
The shock absorber system can partially power a car while smoothing the ride, and could lead to future hybrid technologies.
Photograph courtesy Donna Coveney/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Published February 19, 2009
Drivers in pothole-plagued cities, rejoice: Researchers have invented a shock absorber that can partially power a car while smoothing the ride.
When a vehicle using the technology hits a small bump in the road, hydraulic fluid squirts into a turbine. The turbine then spins as fluid runs through it, powering a small electric generator.
The system, which could someday help power hybrid cars, is controlled by electronics that ensure a much smoother ride than normal shocks while simultaneously generating electricity for the car to use.
A team of mechanical engineers, led by Shakeel Avadhany at Boston's Levant Power Corporation, designed the system, which they've dubbed GenShock.
Road Test
The U.S. military will be the first to give GenShock a test drive.
Improved fuel efficiency would mean hauling less fuel through war zones. And a smoother ride would make handling safer, allowing soldiers to drive over rough terrain faster.
Levant is developing the regenerative shock absorber for the next-generation Humvee, then for the heavy-truck and consumer-hybrid markets, said Avadhany, an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
When installed on a 40-mile-per-gallon hybrid vehicle, the recovered energy can be used for fuel-efficiency gains between 3 percent and 10 percent. This is equivalent to up to a four-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel economy.
"Just as in the case of regenerative braking"—a technique used by some hybrid vehicles to generate electricity from energy released when a car brakes—"one could dump the extra energy in a battery instead of in the atmosphere," said Karl Hedrick, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the research.
"I don't know how significant this will be, but it sounds good."
Editor's note, February 21, 2009: The original version of this article referred to potential fuel-efficiency gains in a military Humvee. It has been corrected and now refers to gains in a 40-mile-per-gallon hybrid vehicle.
Latest News
Recent Energy News
-
Mexico’s Bid for Energy Reform Stirs Passion on Oil Patrimony
Mexico's president seeks to stem falling oil production by luring foreign money and technology. But the privatization drive faces nationalistic opposition.
-
Quiz: What You Don’t Know About Climate Change Science
Every few years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases a new summary of the scientific consensus on climate change. How much do you know about the forces altering the Earth's temperature, according to the IPCC's September 2013 report?
-
Climate Change Action Could Save 500,000 Lives Annually, Study Says
Global action to curb climate change could save 500,000 lives annually, far outweighing the projected cost of reducing fossil fuel emissions, a new study says.
Advertisement
The Big Energy Question
-
Arctic Development: What Should We Know?
As shipping and energy activity increase in the region, what do we urgently need to learn more about? Vote and comment on the list.
-
What Breakthroughs Do Biofuels Need?
Rate the ideas and comment with your own.
-
What Energy Solution to Develop Next?
Given a few examples of proposed next energy directions, how do you rate these ideas, and why?
The Great Energy Challenge
The Great Energy Challenge is an important National Geographic initiative designed to help all of us better understand the breadth and depth of our current energy situation.
