Measured Power Dissipation of Shock Absorbers on Light and Heavy Commercial Vehicles 2014-01-9026

Vehicle shock absorbers are designed to dissipate kinetic energy through frictional viscous forces. In some circumstances, this can be in the order of kilowatts of instantaneous power dissipation. This study quantitatively assesses the vehicle damper system energy dissipation of a low-mass utility vehicle and a high-mass hauling vehicle, using empirically derived regression models of the working dampers and custom data logging equipment. The damper force and power is derived from post-processing of the measurement of critical damper metrics, including linear velocity and temperature. Under typical operating conditions, the low-mass utility vehicle showed an average power dissipation of 39 W for a single shock absorber, and approximately 150 W for a complete vehicle-damper model. The high-mass hauling vehicle demonstrated an average power dissipation of 102 W for a single shock absorber, and approximately 600 W for a complete vehicle-damper model under laden operating conditions. Our results provide evidence of the amount of energy available for harvesting from a vehicles' damper system using a kinetic energy recovery device.