Energy Regerative Suspension

Independent, reliable electricity supplies are critically important when the Marine Corps are in an expeditionary environment. Energy harvesting shock absorbers (EHSAs) — devices that convert vehicle suspension vibrations into useful electricity — hold great promise for providing reliable and independent electricity generation. A recent review reports that a shock absorber in a typical passenger car driving at 70 km/hour on a Class F road (ISO 8608) can generate a mean power of up to 1.2 kilowatts. Despite the great potential of available energy, two deficits in traditional EHSAs hinder the application of the technology in combat vehicles. First, traditional EHSA designs operate based on linear resonance, and are generally narrow-banded near the linear resonance frequencies of a vehicle. Because road irregularities have a broadband, stochastic nature, the actual excitation often does not occur at the resonance frequencies found in traditional EHSA designs, resulting in low power generation. Second, traditional EHSA designs trade suspension performance for energy recovery. We develop a novel energy regenerative suspension that utilizes a stochastic P-bifurcation phenomenon to achieve both superior suspension performance and high energy-harvesting efficiency (dual functions). 

Select publications

1. Cosner, J., & Tai, W. C. (2025). Experimental Parameter Identification of an Energy Harvesting Shock Absorber With Inertia and Friction Nonlinearity. Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, 147(5), 051009.

2. Baradaran Akbarzadeh, M., & Tai, W. C. (2025). Energy regeneration of an electrically interconnected suspension with various electrical network configurations under random or bump excitations. Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, 147(6), 061012.

3. Cosner, J., & Tai, W. C. (2024). Utilization of Stochastic P-Bifurcation for Simultaneous Energy Harvesting and Vibration Suppression: An Experimental Investigation. Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, 146(6), 061102.

4. Cosner, J. A., & Tai, W. C. (2024). P-bifurcation analysis of a quarter-car model with inerter-based pendulum vibration absorber: a wiener path integration approach. Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics, 19(2), 021004.

5. Cosner, J. A., & Tai, W. C. (2022). Stochastic bifurcation and energy transfer in an inerter-based pendulum vibration absorber. Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics, 17(8), 081003.