Santa Clara University Scholar Commons Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses Engineering Senior Theses 6-8-2016 Gravity Charger Luke Lindsay Santa Clara University Will Gonder Santa Clara University George Montgomery Santa Clara University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/mech_senior Part of the Mechanical Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Lindsay, Luke; Gonder, Will; and Montgomery, George, "Gravity Charger" (2016). Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses. 59. https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/mech_senior/59 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Engineering Senior Theses at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Gravity Charger By Luke Lindsay, Will Gonder, George Montgomery SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT REPORT Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering of SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Santa Clara, California 2016 i Abstract According to a 2014 World Health Organization research initiative based on data collected from 14 global developing countries, “Only 28% of health facilities and 34% of hospitals had what could be called “reliable” access to electricity (without prolonged interruptions in one week)” [1]. Healthcare quality suffers because of this lack of reliable electricity. We propose that a gravity powered generator would stand as a reliable power source for small medical devices under any conditions at any location at any time of day. Our research examines how a gravity powered electric generator could best empower medical facilities in developing countries to provide improved healthcare.