Out on the ocean, a rack and pinion Cascade Gear solution is making wave energy farming more cost-effective and productive, thanks to technology from the Department of Machine Design at KTH. But that’s not all the Cascade Gears can do. Two masters’ students at KTH, Linn Sevefjord and Karl Bergqvist, examined other ways this solution could be applied — and the results are pretty awesome.
Combined with a motor, the gearbox forms an electromechanical actuator. And when this actuator is applied to a nine-ton forklift, it can decrease energy usage by 52 percent, while increasing productivity by 1 percent. If used to drive an empty container handler, the results get even better, with potentially 52 percent energy saved and an increase in productivity by 9.6 percent.
Read the paper by Sevefjord and Bergqvist
David Callahan
