Design methodology of an energy harvesting damper for automotive suspension

Abstract

Energy losses in automobile cars nowadays are significant, because of climate change everything is turning into a circular economy, green energy, and regenerating of as much energy as possible. To improve fuel economy in cars, reduce Co2 emissions and supply other power demand systems, recovery systems were developed such as the regenerative braking energy and others are gaining attention like vibration energy recovery on shock absorbers. Therefore, this energy dissipated through the shock absorber as heat can be transformed into electricity and stored in a battery for other use in the vehicle. The presented work provides a solution to regenerate energy through a transmission coupled with an Electric Motor. The main contribution of this research project is the implementation of a Cycloid Drive which was never used for this type of application and is totally new in the state of the art. The second main contribution is the optimization design methodology to couple both components together, the Electric Motor model and the Cycloid Drive model. A way to link them is presented, and several tests are performed with the parameters of the EV-TEC.