Regenerative brakes

Concept
• Stop... start... stop... start. If you make a habit of
driving in city traffic, you'll know it can be a huge
waste of time. What's less obvious is that it's also a
huge waste of energy. Getting a car moving needs a
big input of power, and every time you hit the brakes
all the energy you've built up disappears again,
wasted in the brake pads as heat. Wouldn't it be
good if you could store this energy somehow and
reuse it next time you started to accelerate? That's
the basic concept of regenerative ("regen") brakes,
Idea
 this is a little bit bonkers!
• If your bicycle has a dynamo (a small electricity generator) on it
for powering the lights, you'll know it's harder to peddle when
the dynamo is engaged than when it's switched off. That's
because some of your peddling energy is being "stolen" by the
dynamo and turned into electrical energy in the lights. If you're
going along at speed and you suddenly stop peddling and turn
on the dynamo, it'll bring you to a stop more quickly than you
would normally, for the same reason: it's stealing your kinetic
energy. Now imagine a bicycle with a dynamo that's 100 times
bigger and more powerful. In theory, it could bring your bike to a
halt relatively quickly by converting your kinetic energy into
electricity, which you could store in a battery and use again later.
 What are regenerative brakes?
• electric vehicles are powered by electric motors connected to
batteries. When you're driving along, energy flows from the
batteries to the motors, turning the wheels and providing you with
the kinetic energy you need to move. When you stop and hit the
brakes, the whole process goes into reverse: electronic circuits cut
the power to the motors. Now, your kinetic energy and momentum
makes the wheels turn the motors, so the motors work like
generators and start producing electricity instead of consuming it.
Power flows back from these motor-generators to the batteries,
charging them up. So a good proportion of the energy you lose by
braking is returned to the batteries and can be reused when you
start off again. In practice, regenerative brakes take time to slow
things down, so most vehicles that use them also have ordinary
(friction) brakes working alongside (that's also a good idea in case
the regenerative brakes fail).
Concept!
 Is Regenerative Braking 100% ?
Braking and safety
Braking safety requires installation of additional brakes besides regenerative brakes, for two reasons:
• Braking power of 3-phase AC motors is of the same order as power installed for traction. Additional
braking power is therefore indispensable and provided by mechanical (e.g. disk brakes) or other
dissipative brakes. Typically brakes are blended, i.e. when the driver brakes, first the regenerative
brakes are applied, if more power is needed (especially in unforeseen situations) additional brakes are
applied.
• If the contact between pantograph and catenary is interrupted, regenerative braking is impossible.

Use of recovered energy

• The energy recovered by dynamic braking is used for different purposes: on-board purposes (auxiliaries
or comfort functions). On-board demand is usually far too low to consume all the energy supplied.
• energy is fed back into catenary to be used by other trains motoring close enough (in a section of track
supplied by the same substation).

• If DC substations are equipped with thyristor inverter units, they can feed back energy into the national
grid.
 Limitations

Traditional friction-based braking is used in conjunction with mechanical regenerative braking

for the following reasons:
• The regenerative braking effect drops off at lower speeds, therefore the friction brake is still
required in order to bring the vehicle to a complete halt, although malfunction of a dynamo
can still provide resistance for a while. Physical locking of the rotor is also required to prevent
vehicles from rolling down hills.
• The friction brake is a necessary back-up in the event of failure of the regenerative brake.
• Most road vehicles with regenerative braking only have power on some wheels (as in a 2WD
car) and regenerative braking power only applies to such wheels, so in order to provide
controlled braking under difficult conditions (such as in wet roads) friction based braking is
necessary on the other wheels.
• The amount of electrical energy capable of dissipation is limited by either the capacity of the
supply system to absorb this energy or on the state of charge of the battery or capacitors. No
regenerative braking effect can occur if another electrical component on the same supply
system is not currently drawing power and if the battery or capacitors are already charged.
For this reason, it is normal to also incorporate dynamic braking to absorb the excess energy.
 Cont…
• Under emergency braking it is desirable that the braking force exerted be the
maximum allowed by the friction between the wheels and the surface without
slipping, over the entire speed range from the vehicle's maximum speed down to
zero. The maximum force available for acceleration is typically much less than this
except in the case of extreme high-performance vehicles. Therefore, the power
required to be dissipated by the braking system under emergency braking conditions
may be many times the maximum power which is delivered under acceleration.
Traction motors sized to handle the drive power may not be able to cope with the
extra load and the battery may not be able to accept charge at a sufficiently high
rate. Friction braking is required to absorb the surplus energy in order to allow an
acceptable emergency braking performance.
• For these reasons there is typically the need to control the regenerative braking and
match the friction and regenerative braking to produce the desired total braking
output. The GM EV-1 was the first commercial car to do this. Engineers Abraham
Farag and Loren Majersik were issued two patents for this 'Brake by Wire'
technology.