🚀 go-pugleaf

Ligon@macgw1.ge.com (Woody Ligon) writes:

>If such effects are significant they could be, I suppose, an additional
>selling point both in terms of ride quality and safety. 

>I am assuming of course that the flywheel axle is vertical and the plane of
>rotation is horizontal. 

>Also wouldn't it seem that the gyroscopic effects would put terrific
>strains on the flywheel bearing systems whenever the car hit a bump in the
>road?  And how do you make a bearing strong enough to take that beating and
>still be extremely low friction?

Actually, the rotational inertia is not really the big problem with flywheels.
First of all, if you do it right, the inertia can help, not hurt (mounting
the flywheel horizontally will keep the car from tipping left to right
or up and down, which is desirable (just the wheels move up and down)).

If you REALLY don't want the angular inertia, you can get rid of it one
of two ways.  First, you could mount the flywheel in a gyroscope.  Thus
the flywheel simply moves without effecting the car.  This also removes
flywheel axial loads.  The other possibilty is to have to counter-rotating
flywheels.  In this case the angular inertia cancels out (there is high
axial load between the two flywheels, however).  

The REAL problem with flywheels is safety and weight.   Remember that a
flywheel has the energy equivalent of gallons of gasoline.  If you were
in a accident, this energy could all be release suddenly.   Thus there
MUST be some sort of containment system to insure that even in the worst
case the flywheel does not turn into a very large hand grenade.  This
can be done, but the containment system adds even more to the cost and
weight of the system.  Since flywheels are not the greatest in terms of
energy density to begin with, this is not good.

It seems to me that flywheels DO have good potential in small, stationary
applications (for example storing PV solar electricity during the day
for use at night, here weight is not a problem, and the flywheel's
VERY long life is a major advantage).  

Vance