From: micah glasser (micahglasser@gmail.com)
Date: Tue May 02 2006 - 21:46:33 MDT
Flywheels are already in use in some large trucks. It is practical for large
trucks because starting and stopping such massive objects wastes a lot of
energy. When such trucks are coasting down a hill or breaking much of that
inertia is transferred to a relatively lightweight but extremely high
rotational velocity fly wheel. That energy - through a lot of gear reduction
- is then used for the initial propulsion of the truck from a stand still.
Such fly wheels are not practical for cars at this time because the cars do
not have enough mass and the flywheels are too expensive (much more
expensive than Li-ion batteries).
On 5/2/06, Dani Eder <danielravennest@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> But couldn't we
> > replace the expensive and
> > heavy motors and batteries with a flywheel?
>
> You can only replace the batteries. Because cars
> move around, up and down hills, the flywheel has
> to be in a gimbal mount. It's spin axis will
> resist changing direction no matter which way the
> car is moving.
>
> To keep from losing energy to air friction, the
> flywheel also has to be in a vacuum.
>
> These make it difficult to mechanically connect
> the flywheel to the wheels. If you do the connection
> electrically, then the flywheel has a motor/generator
> at it's end, and the wheels have motor/generators
> at their end.
>
> DRN
>
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