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Rice Recovery

Energy Recovery Systems for Solar and Electric Powered Vehicles

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2011-2012 Team

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Team Name

Rice Recovery

Project Title

Energy Recovery Systems for Solar and Electric Powered Vehicles

Design Challenge

The purpose of this project is to develop a device that can harvest energy to augment existing energy production systems in vehicles. The new energy source will be used to power peripherals in order to allow more energy from the motor to be used for propulsion, thereby increasing the vehicle’s miles per gallon. This will help vehicle manufacturers to realize the federally mandated increase in their fleets’ fuel economy. Our device will be implemented and tested in the Rice University Solar Car, which will race in the Shell Eco-Marathon in April 2012.

Design Summary

Team Rice Recovery’s goal is to develop and manufacture the DynaShock, a regenerative shock absorber that will harvest oscillatory motion from a vehicle’s suspension and convert it to usable energy. This device will be used to mitigate the amount of power drawn from the motor for vehicle peripherals, such as the radio, lights, air conditioning, etc. After extensive research of available DC generatores, we were able to create a MATLAB model of a vehicle’s suspension system with a DynaShock installed. This model has shown us that we will not be able to recover enough energy to make the DynaShock a viable efficiency boosting system for vehicles.
Last Updated: May 1, 2012