Professor's shock absorber wins award
Stony Brook University Professor Lei Zuo holds an electricity-generating shock absorber in the Energy Harvesting & Mechatronic Lab. (June 23, 2011) Credit: Stony Brook University Communications
A bumpy drive could soon be just another way to help power your car, thanks to an award-winning design by a Stony Brook University professor.
R&D magazine recently honored Lei Zuo, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, with an R&D 100 award for his invention of vehicle shock absorbers that harness the energy of vibrations and recycle it back into the vehicle as electricity.
Zuo said the basic concept of his energy-harvesting shock absorbers was similar to other energy-capturing technology. In his case, he focused on otherwise-wasted vibration energy from a vehicle traveling over bumps in the road, accelerating and braking.
"We can harness this energy and convert it to electricity," Zuo said. "The innovation part is that we have a very good design."
Zuo's work was recognized because of its elegant design and its strong commercial appeal -- it could be retrofitted to many of the 250 million cars in America, said R&D Magazine senior editor Paul Livingstone.
"They're taking a technology that has been around for a while and put a twist on it," Livingstone said. "It appealed to judges and the editors."
The R&D 100 awards are considered the "Oscars of invention." The R&D 100 highlight what the magazine, which is devoted to research and development, considers the best innovative products of the year. Some past winners, such as the ATM and HDTV, changed their respective industries.
"We field many hundreds of entries every year, and these are the ones that rose to the top," Livingstone said.
Zuo estimated a midsized vehicle could harvest as much as 1,600 watts of power while driving 60 mph on a "poor" road. The energy could be enough to power some of a vehicle's electronics and charge the battery, reducing the load on the alternator and, thus, adding slightly to the vehicle's fuel mileage, Stony Brook University says.
"This is a very novel idea and concept, and is an extraordinary example of the many innovative and entrepreneurial ideas that are being developed in the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook," Stony Brook president Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. said in a statement. "The R&D 100 award is a remarkable and well-deserved distinction for Dr. Zuo and his entire team."
Zuo said he anticipates his design will be used by car companies, but he's already been approached by a company interested in applying the technology to trains.
He plans to attend the R&D 100 awards dinner in Florida this fall and isn't fazed by the lack of prize money or immediate financial gain. "I think the honor is more important," he said.
