🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec16.192456.6261@news.cs.brandeis.edu> andyh@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Andrew J. Huang) writes:
>2. There are several places for the energy to go during an explosion.
>Since the energy is kinetic, a lot of it will end up as particle
>velocity.  Some will dissipate into the air as air friction (some hot
>air as a side effect).  A quantity of energy will go into the
>mechanical breaking of the flywheel disk itself.  Some more will go
>into the penetration of the flywheel housing.  What residual energy
>escapes these will have to be determined by testing.

I could describe the explosion of a few sticks of dynamite
in just about the same way.

Question for the science impaired: how does the energy in a
stick of dynamite compare with a gallon of gasoline?

>3. You don't need to destroy cars to test the safety/danger of
>exploding flywheels.  You just take a flywheel, spin it to 10 times
>its rated capacity, and give it both barrels of a 10ga shotgun loaded

Am I supposed to believe these things will have a 900% safety margin.

>The potential for these IS tremendous.  As I remember, the power
>output of a flywheel is roughly "equivalent to a V8" in a much smaller
>volume and weight.  Couple this with a super efficient small engine
>running full time at maximum efficiency, minimum pollution to keep the
>flywheel "charged" and you can get power, economy, cleanliness and range.

I'm starting to think you are speaking of a system where the flywheel
is just a small battery for a vehicle with an on-board IC engine and a
fuel tank.  Most people who talk about flywheel systems intend for the
flywheel to store ALL the energy. No gasoline, etc.

-- 
My opinions are my own.