🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Dec23.154010.13703@fcom.cc.utah.edu> bbarkey@lark.utah.edu (Brian Barkey) writes:

|>The flywheel will try to dissipate it's energy over a span of milliseconds.
|>
|I guess I missed the part about dissipating energy over ms. What's the 
|basis for this?

Because of the speeds at which it rotates, the instant the flywheel becomes
unbalanced it will shake itself apart.  The first failure sets up a shock wave
that travels at the speed of sound.  The shock wave has so much energy that it
literally vaporizes the material it is passing through.

|Also, sometimes in accidents the gasoline does mix sufficently well
|with the air to be a hazard (remember the Pinto?).

I've got news for you, no Pinto ever exploded, despite the sensationalist
headlines.  What happened was that the gas tank ruptured and the victims
burned.  For gas to explode the gas has to be vaporized, the gas has to
be mixed with air in the proper ratio.  It takes time to vaporize several
gallons of gas, during this time if there is any breeze, the previously
evaporated gas will be blown away before it can ignite.

At best any explosion will only ignite several ounces of gas.  This is
a tiny, tiny fraction of the energy that the flywheel contains.

|I'm certain that
|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 flywheel fails it will explode.  The question is, was the accident
severe enough to cause the flywheel to explode.  Another problem with
flywheels is that they can fail spontaneously, just because the rotor
got too old.

|Maybe the flywheel isn't safe. Could it be used in a smaller capacity 
|to augment accelerations from braking energy? All of this discussion is
|conjecture, but aren't ideas wonderful to ponder?

There was some conjecture about putting such beasties in buses and vans
a few years ago.  (Popular Science again, if I am not mistaken.)
They choose buses and vans because they were the only vehicles big enough
to put the flywheels that were technologically doable at the time, in.

I have no idea if any such systems were ever built.

-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com