🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15DEC199213355410@rover.uchicago.edu>, frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger) writes:
> In article <1992Dec15.004956.465@mtu.edu>, cmwolf@mtu.edu (christopher m. wolf) writes...
>>jeh@cmkrnl.com writes:
>>The same flywheels are referenced in the last IEEE.  They are low mass, very 
>>high speed devices.  The low mass does not obstruct cornering, while the
>>high speed and low diameter helps them to store more power.  They supposedly
>>should take about 10 minutes to fully "charge", given a large enough (not
>>impossible) power source, although usually not available in the normal home.
>>They should be made of a composite fiber material, so if they should break 
>>apart, they will basically turn into something resembling cotton, instead of
>>destroying everything around it.  Several of these would be needed.  The 
>>magnetic bearings would supposedly allow them to spin for months if not
>>being used.
>> 
> 	What do they do about precession? I remember that being a problem, and
> 	precession effects would still be proportional to the amount of energy
> 	stored. (Love a car that works great in Kansas but goes bananas in San
> 	Francisco.)

I didn't write the part that you quoted and attributed to me, so I'm the
wrong person to ask.  

As someone else has mentioned in this thread, if you put the axis of rotation
vertical, you have no problems making flat turns, but you will have problems 
on banked curves or (as you mention) in hilly places like SFO where the
pitch of the vehicle can change rapidly.  

I also would expect that you'd need an even number of flywheels, in CCW/CW
rotation pairs, or the vehicle would have a pronounced tendency to yaw in the
direction opposite to the flywheel's spin! 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego CA
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, hanrahan@eisner.decus.org, or jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,eisner,uunet}!cmkrnl!jeh