In level running, humans and other animals store and recover elastic energy during each step. What role does elastic energy play during downhill and uphill running? We measured the fluctuations of the mechanical energy of the center of mass (CoM) of 15 human participants running at 3 m s(-1) on the level, downhill and uphill on a force-measuring treadmill mounted at 3, 6 and 9 deg. In level run...

Effective energy storage technologies represent one of the key elements to solving the growing challenges of electrical energy supply of the 21st century. Several energy storage systems are available, from ones that are technologically mature to others still at a research stage. Each technology has its inherent limitations that make its use economically or practically feasible only for specific...

The power chain of autonomous devices consists of an energy scavenger, power converter and energy storage system. The interaction between a piezoelectric vibration energy scavenger, the power converter and the energy storage system is investigated. A system level approach, including mechanical and electrical domains, is pursued for impedance matching from mechanical domain to electrical domain ...

Mechanical characterization of a two-dimensional Thermal Energy Storage (TES) composite structure that combines the heat storage capability with structural functionality was carried out experimentally. Static and fatigue experiments were conducted for the composite structure under three-point bending at both room temperature and elevated temperature. An energy method model was developed to pred...

tomato is one of the sensitive fruits to mechanical impacts and physical tensions. the mostmechanical damages arise from handling which results in reducing tomato quality. in this study,impact energy effect has been studied in 3 different levels 0, 0.14 and 0.25 j by a pendulum impactapparatus, on changes of physicochemical properties of tomato, hybrid variety shiva f1, includingripening factor...

renewable energy sources (res), especially wind power plants, have high priority of promotion in the energy policies worldwide. an increasing share of res and distributed generation (dg), should, as has been assumed, provide improvement in reliability of electricity delivery to the customers. paper presented here concentrates on electricity storage systems technologies and applications pinpoint...

To sustainably power electronics by harvesting mechanical energy using nanogenerators, energy storage is essential to supply a regulated and stable electric output, which is traditionally realized by a direct connection between the two components through a rectifier. However, this may lead to low energy-storage efficiency. Here, we rationally design a charging cycle to maximize energy-storage e...

Locusts have excellent jumping and kicking abilities to survive in nature, which are achieved through the energy storage and release processes occurring in cuticles, especially in the semi-lunar processes (SLP) at the femorotibial joints. As yet, however, the strain energy-storage mechanisms of the SLP cuticles remain unclear. To decode this mystery, we investigated the microstructure, material...