🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec16.232521.14672@mtu.edu> cmwolf@mtu.edu (christopher m. wolf) writes:
}andyh@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Andrew J. Huang) writes:
}>In article <1992Dec15.194558.2556@adobe.com> pngai@adobe.com (Phil Ngai) writes:
}>2. There are several places for the energy to go during an explosion.
}>Since the energy is kinetic, a lot of it will end up as particle
}>velocity.  Some will dissipate into the air as air friction (some hot
}>air as a side effect).  A quantity of energy will go into the
}>mechanical breaking of the flywheel disk itself.  Some more will go
}>into the penetration of the flywheel housing.  What residual energy
}>escapes these will have to be determined by testing.
}
}They are supposedly designed within a box held at a vacuum (sp?), with
}the box string enough to contain them, I thought.
}
}>3. You don't need to destroy cars to test the safety/danger of
}>exploding flywheels.  You just take a flywheel, spin it to 10 times
}>its rated capacity, and give it both barrels of a 10ga shotgun loaded
}>for elephant.  If it explodes, you measure the explosion.  If not,
}>send it to Ralph Nader for further tests.
}
}There is a different between shooting it and having it break up though.  

Here are the numbers:  A flywheel capable of driving a car as far as 10
gallons of gas in an internal combustion engine, if it ruptures, will
cause the same damage as a bomb containing 200lbs of TNT.  

I'm assuming 28% efficiency for the IC engine and 100% efficiency for
the flywheel engine. 
-- 

Norm Strong  (strong@tc.fluke.com)
2528 31st S.   Seattle WA 98144   USA