MIT students develop energy recovering shock absorbers

Great news for car industry was found on the Web. The fashion and necessity of making cars environmentally friendlier has now enhanced onto suspension parts. While lots of petrolheads dislike motors with severe catalysts and poor fuel feed and particularly electric motors that don't do better than a diesel but cost a fortune, making suspension parts generate electric energy while driving will not interfere with what is called active driving. That's true - shock absorbers are now capable of turning dumping energy into electricity. The innovation belongs to MIT students who have united into Levant Power Corp. and set to bringing the concept to end users as soon as possible.

As it turns up, suspension - is an energy wasting vehicle's part. When it dumps and rebounds, it loses kinetic energy the car had before, so it needs to accelerate after bumps hence use more fuel. MIT shocks do not prevent this from happening, but they manage to make use of this process. Concept shocks are hydraulic, and the liquid inside them is pushed through a turbine when the piston goes upwards. Such a way electricity is generated. The suspension is controlled by a computer and is automatically adjusted considering speed, surface, etc. In fact a very common suspension and it claims o be even smoother over rough surfaces.

You might thing this could be tricky fitting shocks with a generator of electric energy. If it goes wrong, does it turn into a gocard? Happily - no. Even if all electronics shut, MIT shock absorbers do not lose its primary functions.

The achievements of regenerating shocks are great. Developers say they can cut 10 percents of fuel consumption. They don't say too much about it, but this is probably achieved by removing standard generator every car has. Now MIT students test their energy harnessing system on a heavy Humvee. SUVs and heavy trucks appear to generate more energy than family saloons so they are going to be first to profit from the novelty.