32
in d ia
Indo American News • Friday, June 18 , 2010
online edition: www.indoamerican-news.com
Harnessing the Power of the Pothole By Anne Eisenberg WE already harvest the power of the sun and the wind. Soon we may also harvest the power of potholes. A new type of shock absorber under development by the Levant Power Corporation converts the bumps and jolts of vehicles on rough roads into usable electricity. Usually, shock absorbers dissipate the energy of bouncing vehicles as heat. But the new shocks can use the kinetic energy of bounces to generate watts, putting the electricity to use running the vehicle’s windshield wipers, fans or dashboard lights, for example. The devices, called GenShocks, can be installed both in ordinary and hybrid vehicles, lowering fuel consumption by 1 to 6 percent, depending on the vehicle and road conditions, said Shakeel Avadhany, chief executive of the company, which is
“they could save a tremendous amount of energy and fuel.” Other designs for electricity-producing shock absorbers are also being developed, Dr. Figueroa said, but many will require redesign or adaptation of vehicles’ suspension systems. He says Levant’s product will be easy to install in existing suspension systems. GenShocks are among many inno-
Shakeel Avadhany, C.E.O. of Levant Power, said its new GenShocks could cut vehicles’ fuel consumption by 1 percent to 6 percent.
Levant’s new shock absorbers turn bumps and jolts of driving into electricity. They were tried on a Humvee.
based in Cambridge, Mass. The new shocks look like ordinary shock absorbers with an electrical power cord at one end. They plug into a power box that regulates the electricity they produce, putting it out at a voltage required by the truck, car or bus. GenShocks will cost slightly more than conventional shock absorbers, Avadhany said, “but you will get those dollars back through improved fuel economy.” He projected that the
products would be on the market in the second quarter of 2011. In May, the National Science Foundation awarded a small-business innovation research grant of $150,000 to Levant to test its shock absorbers with hybrid trucks. Juan E. Figueroa, a program director at the foundation, said that the economic impact of the new shock absorbers could be immediate if owners of truck fleets installed them. “Driving in the city,” he said,
vations in a field known not as energy “conservation,” but as energy “harvesting.” “Harvesting refers specifically to collecting energy that would otherwise be wasted,” said Michael C. McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Princeton who is developing a rubbery, energyharvesting piezoelectric material that creates voltage when it bends. Much useful energy could be harvested on roadways, said Ted Bergman, a program director at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Bergman is administering a new program, undertaken jointly with the Department of Energy, to research ways to harvest waste heat in vehicles and thus reduce reliance on foreign sources of oil. “Seventy-five percent of the energy in vehicles with combustion engines is lost to waste heat,” he said. “Instead of losing that energy, we want to convert some of it into kilowatts of electric power.” Levant Power, founded in 2008, owes part of its origins to the legendary potholes of Boston, said Edwin L. Thomas, a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former teacher of Avadhany when he was an undergraduate there.
When you hit a pothole, he explained, your car moves vertically as well as horizontally. That costs more gasoline per mile because energy is wasted when the forward velocity of the car is converted to vertical motion. “It’s like a sprinter who has to also run hurdles,” Professor Thomas said. Many research groups have tried using shock absorbers to generate electricity, he said, but in his opinion GenShocks have an advantage over earlier models. “This shock has a clever mechanical design,” he said, one that pushes hydraulic fluid through the piston head in an unusual way. Avadhany said Levant Power has had two rounds of financing. The company
would not disclose the names of investors, the amounts they have put into the company or the names of auto parts makers currently testing its shock absorbers. One market that the company is pursuing is military vehicles, said Lt. Gen. John Caldwell, who retired from the Army and now consults for
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, june 18 , 2010 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
the Spectrum Group in Alexandria, Va. He has assisted Levant in its discussions with the Army and said that some of the energy created by the new shocks could be used to power radios and communications and weapons systems on combat vehicles. In hybrid vehicles, Avadhany said, the new shock absorbers could complement regenerative brakes, which can harvest energy otherwise lost in stopping and return it to the battery. Other researchers are adeveloping different types of energy-producing shock absorbers. Lei Zuo, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., has built two prototypes that generate electricity with electromagnets, producing potential fuel efficiency gains of 2 to 10 percent, he said. One prototype alreadymatches standard dimensions of shock absorbers, and the second will do so, too, he said. Several companies, he said, have contacted him about licensing the technology or developing it collaboratively. “I was surprised,” the professor added, “at how much interest there is.”-NYT