3 ms·

The Graduate, 2016: "I just want to say one word to you. Flywheels."

by hughw 10y ago

epistasis 10y ago
I can't really see widespread use of flywheels. They are good for high power, low total amount of energy situations, namely frequency regulation. Bearings and motors/generators are very well understood, unlike lithium ion batteries, so I don't see them getting much cheaper as a flywheel industry expands. Currently, the most expensive lithium ion battery is cheaper than the cheapest flywheel: https://www.lazard.com/media/2391/lazards-levelized-cost-of-storage-analysis-10.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2391/lazards-levelized-cost-of-...
jcoffland 10y ago
Flywheels are really cool. Especially when they explode sending out high velocity shrapnel and/or leaving a molten mass. Still a flywheel powered car using three flywheels set at opposing angles (so their gyroscopic effects cancel) composed of tightly wrapped layers (so they cannot explode) would be awesome.
- ridgeguy 10y ago
  It isn't the shrapnel from flywheel failure that's hard to deal with. Frag containment, particularly of composite rotors that have high volume fractions of fiber and low volume fractions of binder, is actually pretty easy. What's really hard to deal with is the angular momentum. Regardless of how the rotor fragments, angular momentum is conserved. What this means is that the failing rotor will produce amazingly high torques as it encounters stationary surroundings. For typical rotor failures, you can figure that most of the angular momentum will get dumped into the environment in a few seconds as the fragments dig into whatever they hit and come to rest. So as a napkin exercise, if your flywheel spins up to full charge over a period of an hour, and then dumps all that momentum during ten seconds when it fails, you can kind of approximate the torque drama by multiplying the charging torque times the ratio of the charge duration to the failure duration. (I know the torque varies with the flywheel speed, etc. - this is just a disaster estimation exercise.) The practical effect is that you have to secure the containment really well to make sure it doesn't break loose and roll through your facility on its way out into the street. The only two ways I've seen of dealing with the angular momentum problem are (1) have two adjacent counter-rotating wheels that jam into each other when there's a failure or (2) have a containment shell that is free to rotate on one-time use mechanical bearings so it can take the failed rotor momentum and dissipate it over a reasonable time with a braking mechanism. Neither solution is cheap.
- jhallenworld 10y ago
  You could have a two wheel car if have a large flywheel.

The Graduate, 2016: "I just want to say one word to you. Flywheels."

by hughw 10y ago

The Graduate, 2016: "I just want to say one word to you. Flywheels."

I can't really see widespread use of flywheels. They are good for high power, low total amount of energy situations, namely frequency regulation. Bearings and motors/generators are very well understood, unlike lithium ion batteries, so I don't see them getting much cheaper as a flywheel industry expands. Currently, the most expensive lithium ion battery is cheaper than the cheapest flywheel: https://www.lazard.com/media/2391/lazards-levelized-cost-of-storage-analysis-10.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2391/lazards-levelized-cost-of-...

jcoffland 10y ago

Flywheels are really cool. Especially when they explode sending out high velocity shrapnel and/or leaving a molten mass. Still a flywheel powered car using three flywheels set at opposing angles (so their gyroscopic effects cancel) composed of tightly wrapped layers (so they cannot explode) would be awesome.

ridgeguy 10y ago
It isn't the shrapnel from flywheel failure that's hard to deal with. Frag containment, particularly of composite rotors that have high volume fractions of fiber and low volume fractions of binder, is actually pretty easy. What's really hard to deal with is the angular momentum. Regardless of how the rotor fragments, angular momentum is conserved. What this means is that the failing rotor will produce amazingly high torques as it encounters stationary surroundings. For typical rotor failures, you can figure that most of the angular momentum will get dumped into the environment in a few seconds as the fragments dig into whatever they hit and come to rest. So as a napkin exercise, if your flywheel spins up to full charge over a period of an hour, and then dumps all that momentum during ten seconds when it fails, you can kind of approximate the torque drama by multiplying the charging torque times the ratio of the charge duration to the failure duration. (I know the torque varies with the flywheel speed, etc. - this is just a disaster estimation exercise.) The practical effect is that you have to secure the containment really well to make sure it doesn't break loose and roll through your facility on its way out into the street. The only two ways I've seen of dealing with the angular momentum problem are (1) have two adjacent counter-rotating wheels that jam into each other when there's a failure or (2) have a containment shell that is free to rotate on one-time use mechanical bearings so it can take the failed rotor momentum and dissipate it over a reasonable time with a braking mechanism. Neither solution is cheap.
jhallenworld 10y ago
You could have a two wheel car if have a large flywheel.