Springy yoyos turn buildings into sources of energy

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Bericht 19-10-'11, 15:30

DePurpereWolf

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Springy yoyos turn buildings into sources of energy

Springy yoyos turn buildings into sources of energy


One concept I love is recovering waste energy. Every time I walk somewhere, some of the energy I put into walking gets wasted. When buildings and bridges sway, that is energy ripe for harvesting. But getting that energy into a useful form turns out to be difficult


The big reason is scale. Buildings, bridges, and people all get rid of excess energy with characteristic mechanical motions. If you want to collect that energy, you need an oscillator with a similar characteristic motion—the same frequency and a similar amplitude. That means you need a pendulum the size of a building to collect waste energy from the building. Which doesn't seem like such a cool idea. A group of researchers have recently shown how a child's toy—the yoyo—can turn these low frequency vibrations into fast rotational motion, allowing for efficient energy conversion without the enormous size.


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Lees verder: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/1...-converters.ars


Bron: Ars Technica
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