Researchers Build Wearable Generators 84
schliz writes "From the itnews article: 'Bioengineers from the University of Auckland have developed cheap, lightweight rubber power generators that could harvest up to a Watt of power if embedded in shoes. The researchers built on "dielectric elastomer generator" technology that used the movements of a flexible, non-conductive material to build up charge in attached electrodes.'"
Help power cars? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if something like this could be embedded in the tires of a car to help generate electricity to power it self. Would it actually be able to generate enough electricity to make it worthwhile for an electric car though?
Re:Help power cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if something like this could be embedded in the tires of a car to help generate electricity to power it self. Would it actually be able to generate enough electricity to make it worthwhile for an electric car though?
Unfortunately, the extra energy you'd get out of the generators would be provided by the engine (conservation of energy). You'd only get a benefit if the car was coasting downhill by turning the potential energy into electric energy. Since energy conversion isn't 100% efficient, you'd actually lose energy and be further behind in the process.
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They're hot from friction with the road.
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No, they're not, unless you've been drifting.
The friction between the tires and the road is static friction, which keeps the tire from slipping. Only kinetic friction would result in loss of energy as heat.
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Depends on your definition of "slip". If you say a tire is slipping when its rotational speed does not match the theoretical zero-slip speed of a rolling tyre (which is a common definition), then yes, it is slipping pretty much constantly while driving. However, this "slip" is comparable to your being able to move your finger forward and backward while touching something, without the finger actually sliding over the surface, just using the elasticity in your fingertip. A tyre can keep doing this as it rolls
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You'd only get a benefit if the car was coasting downhill by turning the potential energy into electric energy.
If you are coasting downhill, it seems to me that what you really need is power for the steering and the brakes.
Re:Help power cars? (Score:5, Funny)
What we need is to find a way to coast uphill without having to coast downhill.
I've got it.
Put a magnet on the end of a pole in front of the car. It'll pull itself up a hill!
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_laxcr841Fm1qewll0o1_500.jpg [tumblr.com]
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BMO
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My grandfather walked to school uphill both ways. And it was always snowing.
I suggest we look for the opposite of this area, perhaps on the other side of the world, and then we all can start coasting downhill on all our errands we go and it will always be nice and sunny:)
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Damn you! I saw that same pic once and saved it thinking "This will come in handy someday, on Slashdot most likely".
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The rubber in the tires is compressing anyway. unless this generating material is more flexible than car tire material, then I see it as capturing energy that would be lost with out it.
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one would assume that any energy created would create some drag co-efficient somewhere.. may act to cool the tires a bit though.
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For cars there is already something similar, at least in F1. KERS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERS
It has a questionable benefit for road cars though, considering the difference in forces.
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Well, at least we can still use windmills to keep the Dutch cool.
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Windmills do not work that way.
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If you meant "to power itself" literally:
The extra energy generated from the tires would have to come at no cost from the engine. That is known as a perpetual motion [wikipedia.org] machine, which violates the principle of conservation of energy (free lunch out of nowhere).
Now, if you meant "have some extra power for accessories and the like":
When tires roll they get hot, partly from the energy wasted flexing and un-flexing the rubber, which is not perfectly resilient. Any energy drawn out of this cycle would ultimately be
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I'm saying that they do, and any usable energy you want to harvest at the tires (as from using these dielectric polymers) will be in addition to this heat, and thus will have to be supplied ultimately by the engine. At any rate, we're talking single-digit watts here, tens at most, when the engine puts out tens of kW.
Energy harvesting is mostly about energy sources that are already present and end up as heat (sea/river waves, wind, sun), or "stealing" a few watts from a system you can't modify (e.g. your bod
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Up to a Watt of power (Score:1)
Bioengineers from the University of Auckland have developed cheap, lightweight rubber power generators that could harvest up to a Watt of power if embedded in shoes.
One watt and then if you want another watt you have to buy some more shoes? I can't see it catching on.
Re:Up to a Watt of power (Score:5, Interesting)
A watt can recharge an entire smartphone battery in 1-2 hours... I'd welcome a pair of shoes that provides me with a Watt of power when I walk around.
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Ah crap, you're right... for some reason I was going Watts=>Amps at 1:1 - *facepalm*.
Ouch.
It would charge, just slowly - or keep the battery from draining when in use. 1W (~270mA) is around the average amount my Desire draws in active use (screen on low brightness, online via 3G)...
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Funnily enough, I actually do that - drives my girlfriend crazy.
Re:Up to a Watt of power (Score:4, Insightful)
One watt and then if you want another watt you have to buy some more shoes? I can't see it catching on.
A watt is a unit of power, not energy. The lifetime of the shoes is unspecified. Speaking of a watt, that's a lot of power for an energy harvester like this, and sounds too good to be true - because it is. The article only shows a 10mW generator, though that is still enough for periodic radio transmissions. Also, I would guess because it is electrostatic in operation, it would also work as a fairly large capacitor for temporarily storing the energy.
Great (Score:1)
Now all I need are 2,000 people jogging around my house and I'm set.
Obvious statement (Score:3)
If you wear these walking will become 1 watt harder.
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Not really most people bounce a bit when they walk, and the knees end up having to absorb the wasted energy, may as well absorb at least some of it and put it to good use.
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The only real sensible non-intrusive human power generation I've seen was based on catching your knee joint as it extended to take the next step.
Normally when you extend your leg out, your muscles "catch" your lower leg so you don't snap it out against the joint's limit. By having a device hinged on your knee to slow your shin down instead, you do only half of that cycle of work, and also generate some electrical power at the same time.
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Not obvious.
Because it may reduce heat / sound energy emanating from your shoe by 1Watt.
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Not obvious.
Because it may reduce heat / sound energy emanating from your shoe by 1Watt.
Things can be obvious even if they are not true.
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That is true, no free energy. Like walking on sand. Each step would expend more energy, that is unless it is taking over a normal function of the shoe that was disapating that much energy in heat, sound, wear. If that is the case then it could be that the walking will not be any harder.
Been hearing this for a while now (Score:5, Informative)
This might be a new advance, but it's hard to tell. Here [slashdot.org] is a Slashdot story from 2001 with basically the same "researchers find a way to make shoes generate power" line.
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We can call this an advance purely because of the numbers they're reporting--according to the 2001 article. While then they reported 0.0013W generated, now we're seeing one whole watt. Quite the improvement, and it can actually be used for things!
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That one made me laugh, thanks kafka93 (ten years later)!
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Maybe they got lost in time, and have been trying to get together 1.21 billion Chinese people to wear these shoes so they can get back.
Just a thought..
Your conversion might be off (Score:2)
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Haha... The company I work at bought the company (that bought the company...) that used to make those! While they existed, they used to make vibration-absorbing golf clubs and bike shocks with the same guts.
It was a clever idea, at least - inside were one or more piezoceramic benders, wired through a very large inductor to a load (typically an LED to show that it was Doing Something). For the spark chasers out there, it was an LC tank circuit tuned to cancel out the main resonant mode of the "beam" (ski, cl
This is useless, but... (Score:3)
...it's perfect for a gag.
Hook this up to a pack of capacitors and I can go 'round zapping people, at random, without any need to find any woolen carpets to shuffle my feet across.
"Hi, Bob, that's a nice tray of cmos chips ya got there." *zap*
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BMO
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Or rig the capacitors to discharge back into the shoe. Perpetual motion!
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Put the shoes on a wheel (discard the tire) and mount to a car. All you'll need are brakes! It'll be like GTAIV with friction turned off!
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BMO
Olympics (Score:2)
Done before (Score:2)
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...think of the possibilities.
It sits in my wallet for two decades and goes bad?
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Hey, I bounce my leg all the time, you insensitive clod!
years away from being wearable... (Score:1)
SWEET! (Score:1)
Soylent Shoes (Score:1)
Regenerative breaking is people!
Next, they'll be... (Score:2)
I'm Siiiiingin' in the Rain... (Score:1)
Bouncing Breasts -- energy (Score:1)
Old news, but personal power generation has been around for quite a while.
See http://www.slate.com/id/2193827/ [slate.com]
Walking? (Score:1)
Water... (Score:2)