🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec23.154010.13703@fcom.cc.utah.edu>, bbarkey@lark.utah.edu (Brian Barkey) writes:
> I guess I missed the part about dissipating energy over ms. What's the 
> basis for this?

This has all been hashed out a couple of times, but I'll summarize.
The energy dissipates over microseconds to milliseconds because of how
fast the material fails, and how fast it will fully interact with the
container.  These follow from the stress on the material and the velocity
at which it moves.

> Also, sometimes in accidents the gasoline does mix sufficently well
> with the air to be a hazard (remember the Pinto?) I'm certain that

The Pinto as well has been mentioned - Pintos did not explode except in
movies, but they did burn rather spectacularly.  It takes time to create
a cloud of mist or vaporized gas at the proper ratio of gas to air.  It
has to stay in place (no wind) and then be ignited by something.  This
is why burning gas is nowhere near as dangerous as a fuel-air bomb,
even though there is usually less gas in the bomb than in a gas tank.

> in a flywheel powered car there wil be accidents that will be explosive
> and many that are not. Isn't this a factor of the design? If the 

Yes, it is a factor of design and basics physics.  Fundementally, any
large amount of energy stored mechanically in a small volume is subject
to explosion.  The reason is that failure of the mechanical storage
releases all the energy at once.  With gasoline, you need to vaporize the
stuff and then mix it with air.  This takes time and is hard to do
completely with a large amount of gasoline (and even when you do, the
volume of air is so large that the explosion takes place in a big volume
dissipating energy and force).  The mechanical failure occurs far more
quickly, and all the energy is released when it does.

> flywheel power source is a viable and marketable option I'm certain
> that manufacturers in lawsuit happy countries like this would 
> make a couple of prototypes and run 'em into walls to see what happens.

The question really is - Are these "manufacturers" for real, or just
cheap hucksters out to con "investors" and naive government officials
out of money.  Think about the free-energy con men.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov