The Effect of Using Current Stabilizer to the Dynamic Characteristic of a Regenerative Shock Absorber

Abstract

Most of the energy from the vehicle is wasted in the form of heat energy and vibration. On vehicles, the largest vibration occurs in the suspension system. The development of a mechanism which can recover the vibration energy and convert it into electrical energy, named Regenerative Shock Absorber (RSA), will be detailed in this paper. The prototype of RSA which consist of gear transmission and an electromagnetic type electric generator was studied and analyzed. Electrical circuit signal conditioner / stabilizer is added into the RSA system to stabilize the output current of the generator so that the generated electrical energy can be stored in the battery of 6 volts. The characteristics of the RSA are obtained by testing the value of the damping coefficient, the energy absorbtion capacity, and the generated electrical energy before and after going through a series of signal conditioner. Experiment was also performed by measuring the acceleration response time of the sprung and un-sprung suspension system that uses RSA with damping ratio value of 0.6. From this research, it is found that RSA design with stabilizer circuit can produce more stable electric current and voltage. The measurement results show the value of the electrical voltage output through the generator is fluctuating with an average value of 15 volts and a constant 6 volts output is obtained through the signal conditioning circuit. Furthermore, the dynamic response is obtained in the form of acceleration time-value of less than 0.2 m/s2 in a corresponding ISO 2631 standard is stated very comfortable.