Design and Fabrication of Treadmill Electric Bicycle by using Solar Energy

Abstract:
This project deals with conversion of a conventional bicycle into treadmill electric bicycle. In
this bicycle the frame of the bicycle is completely modified and the treadmill is placed in
between the two wheels, on which user will walk. As the user walks or runs on the treadmill the
belt moves to the rear. At the rear roller RPM Sensor is attached to the roller from where Sensor
will sense the speed of the roller and accordingly it will send signal to motor. The motion of
motor is transmitted to the front wheel by which we can get the motion of wheel and bicycle
runs. The system is expected to move as heavy weights up to 150 KGs approximately. The aim
of the project work is to design and fabricate a walking cum cycle mechanism that makes much
easier to move people from one place(section) to the other even while processing in the factories,
industries, etc.

Introduction:
Renewable energy is reliable and plentiful and will potentially be very cheap. Renewable energy
can be locally produced and therefore is not vulnerable to distant political upheavals. Many of
the safety concerns surrounding fossil fuels, such as explosions on oil platforms and collapsing
coal mines, do not exist with renewable energy. Renewable energy produces only minute levels
of carbon emissions and therefore helps combat climate change caused by fossil fuel usage. Most
renewable energy comes either directly or indirectly from the sun. Sunlight, or solar energy, can
be used directly for heating and, for generating electricity, and for hot water heating, solar
cooling, and a variety of commercial and industrial uses. Solar panels convert the sun's light in to
usable solar energy using N-type and P-type semiconductor material. When sunlight is absorbed
by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the
electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. This process of converting light
(photons) to electricity (voltage) is called the photovoltaic (PV) effect. Currently solar panels
convert most of the visible light spectrum and about half of the ultraviolet and infrared light
spectrum to usable solar energy.

Importance of Treadmill and Treadmill Bike:

1.The treadmill is a relatively easy piece of exercise equipment to use
2. The treadmill has a predictable surface that is much easier to negotiate than sidewalks, curbs
or trails and the risk of tripping is reduced
3. All aspects of the workout can be controlled by the user: speed, incline, warm up period, cool
down period, and energy spend
4. Generally, users can design custom programs to fit the time they have to exercise
5. Multiple users can use the same equipment without adjusting the structure
6. Some treadmills have special features such as step counters and heart rate monitors so fitness
progress can be tracked
7. Running on a treadmill generally burns calories faster than most other forms of in-home
exercise, such as biking
There are many health benefits to regular exercise, including an increase in the strength
of the heart, weight loss, and decreased insulin resistance. Walking or running on a treadmill is
great exercise and puts less stress on the body than walking or running on a flat outdoor surface.
Treadmills also offer the option for careful monitoring of the heart rate and blood pressure for
patients that are in poor health or have heart problems. This information helps the patient
determine how much exercise they can do and when its time to stop. Here is some information
about the health benefits of exercising on the treadmill.
The treadmill bicycle is a totally new way of moving. With the electric assist it takes less
effort to walk then a walk in the park. It is the combination of the DC motor, Hall Effect
Sensor and amplifier boosting your walking pace up to the higher speed. Increased use of fuel
has resulted in increase of pollution and degradation of natural resources. With increasing
population and their need, it has become necessary to control the use of fuel and decrease the
pollution; so as to make it avail its important to our coming generation. Due to heavy busy
schedule people are not able to give attention to their health and physical fitness. As it uses no
fuel so it saves energy simultaneously it can be used as treadmill and Bicycle. No need to use it
as conventional treadmill in closed room; you can roam on roads also.

Problem Statement:
1. In our day to day life we see that many peoples use bikes cars as a source of
transportation. This results in environmental pollution and fuel consumption.
2. In manual treadmill the motion of the treadmill is rough to overcome this we use a motor
to rotate the rotors.
3. Batteries which are widely used in automobile sector is not rechargeable thus when they
disposed create pollution.
4. To improve all above phenomenon, we take initiative by designing something which
would help to reduce these harmful phenomena.

Objectives:
While working out in gym people use treadmill for jogging and running. The main disadvantage
of this treadmill is, it is stationary at particular place so sometimes people get bored by jogging at
same place without any exposure to natural atmosphere. For travelling over short distances
people often use a commercial vehicle which causes pollution and unnecessary wastage of fuel.
So, we came to a solution for this type of problem by providing wheels to the treadmill and the
concept is termed as treadmill electric bicycle. The main objectives of the treadmill electric
bicycle are
1. Pollution control.
2. Useful for exercise purpose.
3. To reduce the use of non-renewable energy sources.

Working of Treadmill Electric Bicycle:

The treadmill cycle is driven manually, more or less the same effort is required to drive the bike
as the effort required in treadmill, and it consisting of DC motor and batteries are connected to it
to run when various gear arrangements and two shafts provided to change the motion. The
treadmill cycle will be the best in its segment.

Table 1: Components used in treadmill electric bicycle

Designed Components
Chassis
Fork
Axle of Bicycle
Axle of treadmill
Bicycle handle
Treadmill roller
Treadmill side frame

Standard Components
Brake
belt
Bearing
Electric motor
Wheels

Components:
Bearings:
Single row deep groove ball bearings are the most widely used roller bearing type in the world
due to their versatility and overall performance. They are characterized by having deep raceway
grooves in which the inner and outer rings have circular arcs of slightly larger radius than that of
the balls.

Treadmill:
A treadmill is a device generally for walking or running while staying in the same place.
Treadmills were introduced before the development of powered machines, to harness the power
of animals or humans to do work.

Chain and Sprockets:

A sprocket or sprocket-wheel is a profiled wheel with teeth, cogs, or even sprockets [ that mesh
with a chain, track or other perforated or indented material. The name 'sprocket' applies generally
to any wheel upon which radial projections engage a chain passing over it. It is distinguished
from a gear in that sprockets are never meshed together directly, and differs from a pulley in that
sprockets have teeth and pulleys are smooth

Free wheels:
In mechanical or automotive engineering, a freewheel or overrunning clutch is a device in a
transmission that disengages the driveshaft from the driven shaft when the driven shaft rotates
faster than the driveshaft. An overdrive is sometimes mistakenly called a freewheel.

Solar panels:
A photovoltaic (PV) module is a packaged, connect assembly of typically 610 solar cells. Solar
Photovoltaic panels constitute the solar array of a photovoltaic system that generates and
supplies solar electricity in commercial and residential applications.

Hub motor:
Hub Motor: One bicycle wheel with PAPAMOTOR hub motor and tire together.

Sensor:
Controller: It's a microcomputer that controls the motor, battery, throttle and other parts,
somewhat similar to the ECU (Electronic Control Unit ) of a car.

Throttles:
We have two types (thumb & twist split) for your preferential option. The function of both types
is to control the driving speed.

Brake Handles:
It's specialized to brake and cut off the current transmission to the motor.

Pedal Assistance Sensor:

If you turn on the motor power while riding, PAS will send a signal to make the motor work and
assist you ride easier. Simply speaking, riding with pedal assistance sensor is very helpful to save
your energy.

Battery:
It's the key component, also the most expensive one in the kits. A good battery can upgrade an
electric bike to a higher level. PAPAMOTOR adopts the lifepo4 Battery Pack Which has a longer
lifecycle than a SLA with the same Specification, and lighter much, also with much better
Performance.

Materials used:
The materials used in this

project are detailed as

follows:
1. Mild Steel.
2. Nylon rubber fabric.
3. PVC (polyvinyl chloride).
Mild Steel:
The frame of treadmill and front & rear rollers are made up of mild steel.
Reasons:
1.Mild steel is readily available in market.
2.It is economical to use.
3. It is available in standard size.

4. It has good mechanical properties i.e. It is easily machinable.

5. It has moderate factor of safety, because factor of safety results in unnecessary wastage of
material and Heavy selection.
6. It has high tensile strength.
7. Low co-efficient of thermal expansion.
Properties of Mild Steel:
M.S. has carbon content from 0.15% to 0.30%. They are easily wieldable thus can be hardened
only. They are similar to wrought in properties. Both ultimate tensile and compressive strength of
these steel increases with increasing carbon content. They can be easily gas welded or electric or
arc welded. With increase in the carbon percentage weld ability decreases. Mild steel serves the
purpose and hence selected because of above purpose.
Nylon Rubber Fabric:
Standard material available for tread belt is nylon fabric. So we use this material for treadmill
belt. Nylon rubber fabric is cheap and easily available, less in cost & having property of wear
resistance.
PVC (Polyvinyl chloride):
PVC pipes are used as a supportive roller in treadmill frame. PVC pipes are used because those
are light in weight, easily available, cost is less and also having a smooth surface finish which
gives smooth motion of belt on the surface of supporting rollers.

Design Methodology:
In our attempt to design a walking bike, we have adopted a very careful approach. Total design
work has been divided into two parts mainly,
1. System Design.
2. Mechanical Design
System design mainly concern with the various physical concern and ergonomics, space
requirements, arrangement of various components on the main frame of treadmill, arrangement
of tread belt and rollers, position of braking system, arrangement of motor, sprockets, ease of

maintenance, scope of further improvements, ground clearance etc. In mechanical design, the
components are categorized into two parts.
1. Design Parts
2. Parts to be purchased.
For design parts, detailed design is done and dimensions thus obtained are compared to next
highest dimensions which are readily available in the market. This simplifies the assembly as
well as post production servicing work. The various tolerances on work pieces are specified in
the manufacturing drawing. The process sheets are prepared and passed on to the manufacturing
drawing. The process sheets are prepared and pass on to the manufacturing stage. The parts are
to be purchased directly are specified and selected from standard catalogue.

Design of main frame components:

Treadmill Frame design:
Material- Mild Steel.
As the standard available tread belt size is (980*340) mm. Frame design is done according to the
tread belt size. As per space availability and clearance for reduction of friction, frame size is
(1090*410) mm. Frame consists of a 21 rollers, in which first and last roller is for movement of
belt and other are supportive rollers. Rollers are fitted in frame by means of bush.

Rollers:

Front and Rear Roller width of the frame is 410 mm. So we choose length of rollers as 400mm.
To reduce the friction of belt with Frame 5 mm clearance is provided on both sides. Front roller
is of diameter 58mm and that of rear one have diameter 49mm. For easy and fast movement of
belt Some taper should be provided to belt thats why front roller is large in diameter and rear is
in small diameter. Rollers are connected to frame by using MS rod of diameter 10 mm. PVC
bush are placed in front roller and deep groove ball bearing 6000, which is use for light weight
operation is used. Rear roller is directly welded to 10mm MS rod.

Supportive Rollers:
This roller serves the purpose of support to the tread belt. 19 supportive rollers are fitted in frame
structure. They are made up of a PVC material. The PVC pipes have diameter of inch that is
19.05 mm and length is 390mm.All the design calculation of frame and rollers is done on the
basis of load carrying capacity of walking bike and Space availability. Load carrying capacity of
walking bike is 100kg.
Disadvantages:
1.They can be expensive.
2. Treadmills provide a limited kind of exercise - walking to running - so some people find
treadmills boring after a while
3.They can take up a lot of space. The more sophisticated treadmill bike take up a fair amount of
space.
4. Due to some drawbacks this cannot be used on the road.

Conclusion:
We developed a branch and bound approach which is coupled with quick, effective bounds to
optimize the Treadmill Electric Bicycle which serves the purpose of exercise and travelling
and also reduce the use of non- renewable energy resources. By this project we are creating a
platform in which mechanical energy is converted into linear motion. By using our simple
walking nature, we are changing it to a good running speed by which we are not only saving
energy but also recreating a formula of using small investment to a big amount of achievement.

This prototype can be a good promoted area to use the energy being wasted on treadmills in
fitness centers. By using this prototype, we can not only save energy but also create a new idea
of energy distribution in electrical field which is a common need to everyone in future.

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