GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY WITH THE USE OF SPEED BREAKERS

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 The number of vehicles passing over the speed breaker in roads is increasing day by

day. A large amount of energy is wasted at the speed breakers through the dissipation of heat and also

through friction, every time a vehicle passes over it. There is great possibility of tapping this energy

and generating power by making the speed-breaker as a power generation unit. The generated power

can be used for the lamps, near the speed breakers.

The present work an attempt has been made to fabricate a ramp, which can utilize the kinetic energy

of vehicles in power generation. This type of ramp is best suited for the places where the speed

breaker is a necessity. The places like Toll bridges or on vehicle parking stands are best for its

utilization. The work also discusses the shortcomings of existing methods and the ways it is countered

by this method.

The paper is organized as following. Section II describes the scope of the project. Section III

discusses the recent works in the same field. Section IV gives an in-depth explanation of each part and

then the assembly as a whole with theoretical analysis using ANSYS. Section V explains the working

principle of power generation in this setup. Section VI includes the data collected during the

experiment. Section VII describes the conclusion of our approach. Section VIII contains information

to improve the method and discusses future work.

The utilization of energy is an indication of the growth of a nation. For example, the per capita energy

consumption in USA is 9000 KWh (Kilo Watt hour) per year, whereas the consumption in India is

1200 KWh (Kilo Watt hour). One might conclude that to be materially rich and prosperous, a human

being needs to consume more and more energy. A recent survey on the energy consumption in India

had published a pathetic report that 85,000 villages in India do not still have electricity. Supply of

power in most part of the country is poor according to the study by Priyadharshini.M in “Every Speed

Breaker Is Now A Source of Power” [2]. Hence more research and development and

commercialization of technologies are needed in this field. India, unlike the top developed countries

has very poor roads. Talking about a particular road itself includes a number of speed breakers. By

just placing a unit like the “Power Generation Unit from Speed Breakers”, so much of energy can be

tapped. This energy can be used for the lights on the either sides of the roads and thus much power

that is consumed by these lights can be utilized to send power to these villages.

III. RELATED WORK

Recently several attempts and models have been suggested and tested for harnessing kinetic energy of

vehicles via a speed bump. Mechanisms which include springs by A.K. Singh, Deepak S.,

Madhawendra K. and V. Pandit [1], Rack and Pinion by Aswathaman. V and Priyadharshini.M in

“Every Speed Breaker Is Now A Source of Power” [2]; by Shakun Srivastava , Ankit Asthana in

“Produce electricity by the use of speed Breakers”[3] and by Ankit Gupta, Kuldeep Chaudhary & B.N

Agrawal in “An Experimental study of Generation of Electricity using Speed Breaker”[4] and slider

crank by Noor Fatima and Jiyaul Mustafa in “Production of electricity by the method of road power

generation” [5] have been suggested for producing electricity. Electrodynamics based models by

Ankita and Meenu Bala in ”Power generation from speed breaker” [6] have also been suggested, but

are not only expensive to fabricate but involve complicated calculations and can’t be used a large

scale very easily. Totaram [7] uses a platform plate which is kept inclined on a raised base level to

allow vehicles to pass over the raised surface. This system will not work till a vehicle passes on road

way.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL MODELING

The proposed model has been modelled using Solidworks software and analysed using ANSYS. The

system comprises of a base and two ramps (1and 14 in figure 1), made of plywood to make the model

portable. Two pieces of plywood (20 and 21 in figure 2) with dimensions 82x875 mm were cut which

support the ramps. Two more side supports of dimensions 446x157 mm were cut which acts as

bearing supports (22 in figure 2). Figure 1 shows the complete ramp and base assembly. Three MS

shafts (2,3 and 4 in figure 1) 1m in length, 28.5mm OD and 3mm thickness are fitted between the two

side supports with the help of six journal bearings. On each shaft one MS Roller (11, 12 and 13 in

figure 1) of 78mm OD and 2mm thickness was welded using MS plates of 2mm thickness. On each

sides of shaft, 15 cm CI sprockets of 24 teeth. Also two SS bearings were attached 7cm from each

end. Fig shows the final assembly of the invention. The three MS rollers are connected to each other

via chains inside the ramps. The outer parts of the end rollers have CI sprockets (5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 in

figure 1) with 40 teeth. This is turn is connected to a smaller sprocket (15 in figure 2) with 18 teeth.

That in turn is connected to the shaft of the generator. The rollers are joined by chains so as to provide

a uniform movement in all the rollers. The distances between the rollers were calculated on the basis

of standard chains available in the market. The rollers are connected via chains so as to give them

uniform rotation at all times. The end roller is connected via a chain to a smaller sprocket which is

joined to the shaft of the generator. The system completely eliminates the use of springs which get

worn down due to rapid expansion and compression.

International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology, May, 2014.

The simulation conditions when the model was tested in ANSYS Workbench® are depicted in Figure

3. It was assumed that a vehicle of mass 200kgs (with driver) passes over the invention. Since at a

time only one of the tire is on the roller thus for a given instant the roller carries a weight of 100kgs.

Also some rotation is imparted to it, so to be on safer side it is rotated at 100 rad/s.

Fig. 2 Model of Final Assembly

Fig.3 Simulation Conditions

Figure 4 shows the results of the simulation on the invention. The maximum stress on the bearings

was 0.62MPa, which is well within the yield point for SS. Figure 5 is the assembled model made after

fine tuning of model in ANSYS, according to the dimensions given above. The model was tested

using a two wheeler, which was passed over it at different velocities, which gave different power

output.

 

Fig. 4 ANSYS Simulation Results

The friction force

due to vehicle movement acted upon the speed breaker system is transmitted to chain sprocket

arrangements. The sprocket arrangement is made of two sprockets. One of the sprocket is larger in

dimension than the other sprocket. Both the sprockets are connected with chain which transmits the

power from the larger sprocket to the smaller sprocket. As the power is transmitted from the larger

sprocket to the smaller sprocket, the speed that is available at the larger sprocket is relatively

multiplied at the rotation of the smaller sprocket. The axis of the smaller sprocket is coupled to a gear

arrangement. Here we have two gears with different dimensions. The gear wheel with the larger

diameter is coupled to the axis of the smaller sprocket. Hence, the speed that has been increased at the

smaller sprocket wheel is passed on to this gear wheel of larger diameter. The smaller gear is coupled

to the larger gear. Therefore, as the larger gear rotates it increases the speed of the smaller gear which

is following the larger gear and multiplies the speed to more intensity. Though the speed due to the

rotary motion achieved at the larger sprocket wheel is less, as the power is transmitted to gears, the

final speed achieved is high. This speed is sufficient to rotate the rotor of a generator and is fed into

the rotor of a generator. The rotor which rotates within a static magnetic stator cuts the magnetic flux

surrounding it, thus producing the electric motive force (emf). This generated emf is then sent to an

inverter, where the generated emf is regulated. This regulated emf is now sent to the storage battery

where it is stored during the day time and can be used in night time for providing power to street

lights.

For testing the above setup, a two-wheeler was run over the model at different speeds to get the

reading of current and voltage generated under different conditions. Table 1 shows the results of the

experiments conducted on the prototype invention. It is observed that on moving a small vehicle over

the roller, the speed varies from 10-15 km/hour, the voltage produced is in the range of 3-4 volts

Fig. 5 Testing of the Fabricated Model

Voltage (Volts) Current (mA)

3 18

3.2 24

2.5 20

Table 1 Experimental Results for 1 tyre

For a single run of a 2 wheeler, 0.06W/tire of power is produced. The Indian Roads Congress’ latest

Data [9] considers a vehicular flow of 3150 pcu/h (passengers carrying unit per hour) for peak hours

(8 hour windows), 1500 pcu/h for off peak and 400pcu/h for nights as a standard, resulting in a total

flow of 40400 pcu/day. The above data implies that large amounts of energy can be harnessed for

4/6/8 wheelers on highways employing similar setups.

 

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