ENERGY DOORS
ABSTRACT
Energy Doors – as the name suggests, doors that can produce electricity.
The input is the human energy. The electricity produced can be stored in a
battery or can be used directly to provide power to small electrical appliances.
There are two types of
energy doors:
1. Mechanical Energy Doors
2. Electronic Energy Doors.
The energy door which has gears, flywheels,
and an alternator is called mechanical energy doors. The energy door which
has lightning piezoelectric components is called as electronic energy
doors.
Mechanical Energy doors can be used in public places to
produce electricity and electronic energy doors can be used in private
buildings, as they produce more electricity than mechanical systems.
The door is connected to a mechanism which has either
mechanical components or electronic components. When the door is opened or
closed, the given human power, which causes the mechanical motion, is converted
into electricity by the alternator or lightning piezoelectric component.
This energy door can be mainly used for powering lighting
system using LED’s as they require only small amount of electricity. This
reduces the electricity bill and mainly, it reduces the usage of fossil fuels
used to produce electricity which cause pollution to the environment.
The main aim of the energy door is to save the environment
by providing power using freely available human power without causing any
pollution to the environment.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION:
Energy doors can produce electricity by converting small
amounts of human energy into electricity. The electricity produced by the
energy door can be used to power small electric devices or can be stored in a
battery to use it later.
CONCEPT:
Every
building in this world has doors. We humans operate the door using our energy.
The door has two operations – open and close. The idea is to add another
operation to the door to produce electricity, which utilizes the same human
energy to produce electricity.
CONSTRUCTION:
The energy door consists of the following parts:
1.
Ordinary door.
2.
Gear wheels.
3.
Flywheel.
4.
Connecting rod.
5.
Chain & Sprocket.
6.
Generator.
7.
Piezoelectric device.
8.
Battery.
MODEL OF ENERGY DOOR DESIGNED USING SOLIDWORKS
1. DOOR:
The
door can be of three types:
A. Swinging
door.
B. Sliding
door.
C. Rotating
door.
A.
Swing door is a simple
door. In this, the door is connected to a mechanism by a connecting rod which
is connected to a chain. The other end is attached with a sprocket which
converts the sliding mechanism into rotating mechanism. The sprocket is connected to gear wheels,
which increases the speed of the rotating motion. The gear wheels are connected
to a flywheel. The main use of a flywheel here is to make things easier. A
slight force is enough from us; rest of the necessary force is provided by the
flywheel.
B.
Sliding door
– also has
the same mechanism as the swinging door.
C.
Rotating
door –
In this there is no need of converting sliding motion into rotating motion. The
gears and flywheel are connected directly to the main shaft of the door. The
alternator or lightning piezoelectric component is also attached directly to
the main shaft.
PIEZOELECTRIC COMPONENT:
Instead of using gears, flywheels & alternators to
produce electricity. A piezoelectric component can be used to produce large amount
electricity depending on the type of piezoelectric component.
Here, a Lightning
piezoelectric component is used. This piezoelectric component is a special
type which can produce more electricity when compared to ordinary piezoelectric
materials. This lightning piezoelectric component is developed by NASA.
It works on
a simple principle. A thin ceramic piezoelectric wafer is sandwiched between an
aluminum sheet and a steel sheet and held together with LaRC-SI, an amorphous thermoplastic adhesive with special
properties created by NASA. The sandwich is heated in an autoclave, and the
adhesive melts. When the sandwich cools, the adhesive bonds the parts together
into one piezoelectric element. While they cool, the components of the element
contract at different rates, since they are made of different materials. This
differential shrinkage causes the element to warp in either a convex or concave
shape, depending on which way it is oriented. The shrinking of the outside
metal layers places the inside piezoelectric ceramic under mechanical stress.
If the element is cantilevered by clamping one side and then plucked, it
reverberates like a diving board that has just ejected a diver.
This way, a
small amount of mechanical energy can result in a relatively long period of
electrical generation
Lightning piezoelectric component
WORKING
OF ENERGY DOORS:
The working procedure is simple. In swinging & sliding
doors, the sliding motion is converted into rotating motion, which drives the
alternator to produce electricity. In rotating doors, directly the rotating motion
is converted into electricity.
Instead
of using mechanical components, piezoelectric component can be used. In this
the mechanical energy is directly converted into electricity with much more
efficiently than the alternator.
APPLICATIONS:
·
The
energy doors can be used in public places like hotels, shops, railway station,
airport and in many public places.
·
It
can be used in private buildings in places like air-conditioned rooms like
computer labs, library & etc…
·
A
piezoelectric energy doors can be best used in houses which produces larger
amount of electricity.
·
The
electricity generated by the energy door can be used stored or can be used to
power LED lights which needs only small amount of electricity.
·
It
can be used to directly power a camera in a door or for an electronic lock.
·
At
last, but not the least, it reduces the pollution produced by fossil fuels for
generating electricity to a little extent.
CONCLUSION:
The Energy doors will
revolutionize the design of doors. Usage of many energy doors in a building can
produce large amount of energy which can be used for powering the entire
lighting systems, which reduces the electricity bill. And it has many other
benefits than conventional doors.
