Automakers Give Flywheels a Spin

MIT Technology Review ^ | Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | By Kevin Bullis

[Red Badger]

Flying by:A computer model of Volvo's flywheel, with an outer section cut away. Credit: Volvo

[Red Badger]

Automobile Tech Ping!.............

[Cboldt]

Popular Science : August 1970

[SeeSharp]

And will the torque make it easy to turn right but hard to turn left?

[Red Badger]

Behold! All thing old are new again!................

[Red Badger]

Not If it’s horizontal............

[SnuffaBolshevik]

[Charles Martel]

To reduce friction, they've sealed the flywheels inside a vacuum chamber.

Seems like for production automobiles, there would be a bigger problem with soft Chinese bearings than with drag from the *air*.

[Malsua]

Flywheels are great...as long as you don't want to turn and if you can overcome the gyroscopic action, it's great.

I recall talk of this back in the 90s for Tanks. One of the issues was that when the tank is moving, It can't turn or it could potentially flip over. That's a lot of energy.

[Red Badger]

Check this out: Formula 1 ‘Flybrid’ racing engine...........

http://www.flybridsystems.com/F1System.html

[Gaffer]

Ah...the crux of the problem!!!! Awful hard to create momentum without mass - therefore weight...

[TheOldLady]

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[Wuli]

I wonder if a “normally sealed unit” - as “sealed” as most ordinary “sealed” units are in cars today, filled with some very slippery but dense liquid (to reduce the flywheel’s friction) and with the flywheel suspended in it (suspended in the liquid), would be better (”almost” as efficient and more economical) than a pure vacuum.

For heat (the sealed-in-fluid may obtain heat in the operation of the flywheel), engineer the casing of the unit to “exchange” the heat out of the unit in some way, either simply, because it - the casing is exposed to air somehow, or some more esoteric solution.

[Charles Martel]

Neat packaging - and it reminds me why F1 cars cost almost as much as fighter jets. If this technology enters the passenger car market, it'll be at the "exotic" end.

It might even come equipped with a backup pull-starter:

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Those things will act like C4 in an accident.

[The KG9 Kid]

Or come sailing through the passenger compartment and then God knows where in a major collision.

Someone will be dead, and Volvo will just say "Whoops".

[Voter62vb]

...but your car will flip on it’s driving fast over a hill...jk.

[antiRepublicrat]

utomakers face the problem of how to maintain the vacuum, since the seals that connect the flywheel to a transmission aren't perfect.

Simple, make the flywheel essentially the inner part of an electric generator. Add or bleed energy using electromagnets, not a mechanical transmission.

[SeeSharp]

Not If it’s horizontal............

LOL - So just be careful going over hilltops eh?

[Voter62vb]

SIDE...but your car will flip on it’s SIDE driving fast over a hill...jk.

DOH