Design of a Piezoelectric Energy-Harvesting Shock Absorber System for a Vehicle

Abstract

Only ∼20% of a vehicle's fuel consumption is used for overcoming air drag force and friction with the road. Vibration energy produced during driving is dissipated by shock absorbers in the vehicle suspension. A new Piezoelectric Energy-Harvesting Shock Absorber (PEHSA) system for vehicles has been developed to act as an energy harvester that converts vibration energy to electrical energy. Cylindrical piezoelectric transducers are combined with the cylinder of the shock absorber to generate electricity from changes in fluid pressure produced by piston vibrations. A multiphysics simulation was performed using COMSOL Multiphysics to determine the characteristics of the PEHSA system.

Keywords:

• Piezoelectric energy harvesting
• Shock absorber
• Vehicle
• Suspension
• Vibration

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2012–0009458)

This work was also supported by SEED type project (PER12030) funded by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology