Energy-Harvesting Potential and Vehicle Dynamics Conflict Analysis under Harmonic and Random Road Excitations

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Energy has the worldwide concern since the World War. Recently, the energy harvesting technology has got more attraction in different fields and applications. Hence, in a world where energy becomes rare and expensive, even the small quantities are worth to be harvested where it can be exploited in different applications. Vehicle suspension is one of the vibration power dissipation sources in which the undesired vibration is dissipated into heat waste. Accordingly, the principal motivation of this study is exploitation the conflict between the potentially harvested power and vehicle dynamics in automotive suspension system induced by road irregularity. Therefore, in terms of RMS conflict diagrams, the conflict between the potential power and vehicle dynamics are sufficiently and comprehensively defined considering a vehicle speed of 20 m/s. The conflict analysis includes ride comfort (body acceleration), road handling (dynamic tire force) and potentially harvested power considering the influence of sprung and unsprung masses, stiffness rate, damping coefficient, tire stiffness, speed and road roughness. In this manner, a quarter suspension mathematical model is developed and built in Matlab/Simulink interface and uneven road profile is modeled for different road classes according to the ISO standard. Besides, a parametric analysis study is adopted to investigate the influence of the model parameters on the potentially harvested power. Then, the amount of the potential harvested power is quantified and presented for different driving conditions. The results are of interest for the researchers and vehicle manufacturers for further considerations during design and test preparation in the generative vehicle suspensions.</div></div>