Project Overview

Title: Project S.P.E.E.D. (Supplemental Propulsion Electrical Energy Door)

As energy demands increase around the world, it becomes more and more important to conserve energy. Finding new ways to do so can also help with environmental conservation, as it would reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

One way to conserve energy is to identify areas where energy is being wasted and reduce the waste. This could be done through increasing efficiency, or by energy recycling to collect and store the wasted energy. One place where energy could be recovered is in doorways. In many public places, multiple people go through revolving doors and the kinetic energy generated by the force they apply to open the doors is not applied in any way, while it could be harvested, converted and stored for further usage. In particular, the kinetic energy can be converted to electrical energy through the use of a motor.

The goal of this project was to show that another way to conserve energy would be to collect and store some of the energy that is wasted when using a revolving door. This will be done by creating a model that connects a gear transmission set, an energy converting motor, and LED light and an energy storage device. This model will illustrate that it would be possible to collect a portion of the kinetic energy supplied by people using a revolving door, energy that would have otherwise gone to waste.