Question

Write a literature review from any article concerning the "conversion of kinetic energy to electrical energy" make sure your literature review contains( name of research, problem statement,method,result/conclusion)

Answer 1

Potential for harvesting electrical energy from swing and revolving door use

Problem Statement

The aim of this paper is to convert the mechanical work input by a user to transit through swing and revolving doors into the electrical energy. A mathematical approach has been taken to consider this, with several approaches to harvesting energy from door use have been considered. Each of these have been assessed in terms of the impact of an energy generation unit on the motion of the door and also the potential that then exists for generating electrical energy. The continuous use of each door type was also considered to determine the maximum achievable electrical energy output over the course of 1-minute. It was concluded that both swing and revolving doors offer potential for electrical energy generation.

2. Swing doors

The methodology implemented for modelling the motion and energy potential for a swing door is as follows. A representation of the parameters used in determining the door’s motion are shown in Figure 1. Three approaches were considered for generating energy from a swing door, with the approaches considered laid out below.

(1) Method 1: The motion of the door directly drives a generator during opening and closing.

(2) Method 2: Energy was transferred to two springs during door opening. One of these was used to closed the door,

whereas the other drives a generator.

(3) Method 3: Replace the damping unit with an energy generation unit to act in place of the door damper.

Figure 1. Diagram showing the layout of the door to be modelled.

Result

A comparison between the energy generation potential and average power output of swing and revolving doors shows that there is a significant increase for revolving doors over all of the swing door methods of generation. This however, came at the cost of an increase in the time taken for a user to transit the door and to the energy input required from the user. In part this is due to the difference in the angular rotation of the door required for a user to transit. The revolving door does not require a closing mechanism to shut the door after the user has transited and as such all of the energy input by the user is utilised for energy generation. Similarly, for method 3 of the swing door, it has been assumed that the door damper has been replaced by a generator. In this case all of the energy input by the user is utilised by the generator. As a result, the value of Utilisation Factor is greater for a revolving door and for method 3 of the swing door than for methods 1 and 2 of the swing door.

Conclusions

It was concluded that there is potential for electrical energy generation through the utilisation of the mechanical work carried out during use of swing and revolving doors.

In terms of swing doors, 3 methods of generation were explored where an energy generation potential of ~10 J/DOE was found for each method. It was found that methods 1 and 3 offered the best potential in terms of the average power output since the implementation of method 2 would significantly increase the time taken for the door to close. It was found that the average power output from a swing door increased for a decrease in the mass of the door and for an increase in the torsional spring constant and door width. Finding the optimal parameters will depend on the location at which a door is to be installed.

It was found that revolving doors offer far higher potential for energy generation than swing doors, with an output in the region of 40 J/DOE. As with swing doors it was found that decreasing the mass of the door resulted in an increase to the average power output. The damping offered by the generator was found to impact the time of a DOE. The width of the door resulted in an increase to both the value of generated energy and average power output. An additional advantage of a revolving door was that it can be operated continuously with respect to generating electrical energy since there is no need for the door to return to the closed state before the next operation. Although this did not impact on the energy output, it did significantly increase the average power output.

When considering the energy output from a swing or revolving door, it was found that the revolving door offered a significantly larger generated energy output than a swing door. This was due to both the increased energy and average power outputs of a revolving door and also the continuous generation of electrical energy that can be achieved with a revolving door.