Regenerative Braking System

Abstract

Every time we step on our car's brakes, we are wasting energy. Physics tells us that energy cannot be destroyed. So when our car slows down, the kinetic energy that was propelling it forward has to go somewhere. Most of it simply dissipates as heat and becomes useless. That energy, which could have been used to do work, is essentially wasted. Is there anything that we, the driver, can do to stop wasting this energy? Not really. In most cars it's the inevitable byproduct of braking and there's no way you can drive a car without occasionally hitting the brakes. But automotive engineers have given this problem a lot of thought and have come up with a kind of braking system that can recapture much of the car's kinetic energy and convert it into electricity, so that it can be used to recharge the car's batteries. This system is called regenerative braking. In this project we are making an attempt of exploring the Regenerative Braking System which can save the energy which is being lost during braking as heat due to friction. A practical model is developed which is similar to that of the existent one and the working of the system is explained in detail.