3 ms·
They just break if anything goes wrong Where break means explode, hopefully contained by the housing.
by Johnny555 9y ago
They just break if anything goes wrong
Where break means explode, hopefully contained by the housing.
- orbital-decay 9y agoYeah, a high velocity chunk of fiber can be pretty nasty too. Still, it's much easier to contain compared to a huge metal wheel, because they literally disintegrate on failure when saturated.
- carapace 8y agoGoes right to turbulent flow, as opposed to the laminar flow of metal in/as the wheel. Nice.
- e12e 8y agoTechnically gas is "soft" but doesn't seem that way when powder explodes. It doesn't seem trivial to contain this energy - the vessel would still explode, given enough energy in the wheel? Certainly safer than launching a giant death Frisbee... But lots of energy is still lots of energy. I guess it's a bit machine gun bullet vs hand grenade - about equal energy - but the grenade will just blow up a room while the bullet will go through walls and lodge in an engine block.
- ams6110 8y agoIt's the sudden release of energy that matters. Not the composition of the flywheel.