🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <51694@seismo.CSS.GOV>, stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> 
> Flame on.
> 
> The rampant idiocy on flywheels just continues.  How many ways do people have
> to be told about conservation of energy?

Conservation of energy exactly, where do you think you get the energy to 
turn a carbon carbon fly wheel into cotton candy from?  Before you start
flaming at others for not doing the math, do it yourself.

> Don't contribute to the discussion if you don't know anything and haven't
> at least read a few articles in it, for cryin' out loud.  I figure there's
> been about 1 post every 4 or 5 hours over the past week or so, on average,
> refuting this lunacy about "fluff".
> 
> Get it through your thick head - energy is conserved.  A flywheel that can power
> a car for 600 miles stores basically the same energy that gasoline to power it
> the same distance contains.  Do you know anything about fuel-air bombs?  Do you
> realize how big an explosion a few gallons of gas can make, when properly mixed
> with air?  Do you realize that a hyper speed flywheel fails in microseconds,
> releasing all that energy at once?

Wrong again, a hyper speed carbon carbon flywheel is not designed to fail at
once it is designed to fail a bit at a time, as cotton candy, using up a 
significant fraction of the energy stored in the disk over a period of time 
(although that time may be microseconds).  
 
> You think fluff is harmless?  Let's tie you down and hit you with "fluff"
> traveling at several km/s and at a temperature of a few thousand degrees.
> Let's see if we can find any teeny parts of you after the impact.

Obviously this fluff created by a failed flywheel is not exactly safe.  But
you contain this fluff inside another carbon carbon shell such that the
expanding hot fluff makes more fluff until the energy is such that it can
be contained by a container.  The object is not to stop the flywheel failure
at any given point, but to slow it down and cause it to loose energy.  

What I would like to see is a good treatment of the energy needed to turn a 
flywheel into cotton candy.  This gives everyone a better idea of how 
much energy is left yet to be contain by the next carbon carbon shell.

> I'm really tiring of this nonsense, so while I politely corrected the
> first posters in their misconceptions - you get flamed, boy.
> 
> > >My opinions are my own.
> 
> Good thing - they're pretty damned stupid for anyone else.

Gee thanks for your help in keeping this discussion open and moving forward.

> --
> Richard Stead
> Center for Seismic Studies
> Arlington, VA
> stead@seismo.css.gov
> 
Darin S. Olson
R&DD
LMSC
Palo Alto, CA