NUST Institutions Library Catalogue

Energy crisis and environmental problems such as oil shortage and atmospheric pollution have
brought challenges for new development of an energy saving, efficient and environment friendly
power transmission system in vehicles. This research is focused on how to use the vibrational
energy of the suspension system to generate power that would otherwise go as waste. It is
demonstrated that the potential energy of driving vibration is sufficient to be utilized as a
sustainable energy. The vibrations experienced by the shock absorber of the vehicle when passed
through some irregularities on the road are converted into useful energy by using a regenerative
linear or rotary mechanism. As shock absorber effect formed, spring is compressed, and linear
movement of rack is converted in rotary motion due to pinion moves as the rack is meshed with
pinion. And the pinion is mounted on the shaft of the generator which then produce the power. It
is then used to calculate the practical power generated from the regenerative shock absorber by
taking the real vibrations amplitude data from the road. The vibrations amplitude data is acquired
from the road by driving motorcycle on different road conditions with the setup installed in it to
calculate and store the vibrations amplitude data. Later, the same data is applied to the testing rig
by using pneumatic and Arduino to find out the voltage generated. The power that is practically
generated by testing the mechanism on the rig is around 9.5 watts. The harvestable power from the
suspension depends on the vehicle speed, road roughness and stiffness of the tire. This regenerated
energy is used to charge the battery.