Comments on: The Mechanical Battery

By: Anonymousx2

Anonymousx2 — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 01:55:57 +0000

Thirteen and a half years since I posted? How is it possible for that much time to pass that quickly?

By: Yottawatt

Yottawatt — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 09:43:42 +0000

My interest in Flywheel Power goes back almost 50 years, to an article in Pop Sci or Pop Mech circa 1970, about work done at MIT which solved many of the problems mentioned, for the full-sized sedan they modified. They used an exponentially-tapered mild steel disk of 20.5 inch diameter @ 40 lb mass, shaft run on ball bearings and through shaft seals. Running at 24000 or 25000 RPM in vacuum (edge velocity about Mach 2), it stored enough energy to output 400 HP for 10 seconds, delivered through a reduction gearbox into standard torque converter and automatic transmission, then into the regular drivetrain. The big 500 HP V8 was replaced with a measly 100 HP 4-banger, the combination giving (by design) equal acceleration performance up to 80 MPH. That is some 3 megajoules (MJ) delivered energy, starting at the normal upper flywheel speed and dropping down to half speed at the low end of flywheel RPM, thus extracting 3/4 of the 4 MJ stored energy. Blow-up speed was 36000 RPM, which would represent twice as much stored energy, or a bit more. Many tests of the explosion shield were performed, all being perfectly safe and successful, with a shield of (iirc) 2 inches of dense-packed fiberglass (not impregnated) inside a 1/4-inch thick steel shell. Flywheel fragments spent all their energy ripping the fiberglass to shreds, expending all their (initially tangential) kinetic energy before reaching the steel shell. I infer that it is important to scale the fiberglass thickness along with rotor diameter, and to minimize the gap between them. Evidently the fiberglass was in vacuo. The combined bearing, seal and windage losses were low enough that this flywheel would still start the engine after 48 hours at no load. The idea failed to 'get traction' due to the high cost of using 3 automatic transmissions. Modern electronically-controlled motors and generators would solve that problem. One might even go for All-Wheel-Drive via independent motors, making traction control simple and cheap. Regenerative braking would also be vastly easier nowadays thanks to our high-power electronics and super-magnets. Modern super-flywheel geometries and materials would greatly increase both the energy-to weight and power-to weight ratios. One of the super-flywheel geometries (think lawnmower blade) eliminates the need for gimbal mounts by the simple expedient of the rotor itself being flexible.

By: Druckluftlok.

Druckluftlok. — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 17:55:44 +0000

You maybe interested to know that The Ukrainian company DRUZHOVKA HEAVY ENGINEERING have been building Flywheel Inertia-Drive Locomotives for us in Dusty/and or Gassy Collieries since the early 1960’s developed from a prototype built in the late 1950’s The original prototype had two flywheels but it was found that it was better to have a single flywheel running in air at up to 3000 rpm coupled to a 2-speed gearbox. The flywheel is powered by an air motor which uses “run of mine”compressed air at around 7-8 bar. On the prototype locomotive the flywheels were powered by a static air motor but it was found that it was better to mount the air motor on the locomotive. The locomotives are known as ‘GYROZ’Today Druzhkovka are are building The Type GR6 locomotives!They are used for “Gathering Duties” and have a range of 2-3 Kilometers before the flywheel needs to be reved up again.It would be possible to build a Flywheel-Pneumatic Locomotive were the locomtive carries a high pressure air supply at around 200 bar which is then reduced to say 10 bar and used in the air motor to drive the flywheel(Note High Pressure Pneumatic Locomotives have been built for the mining industry up to the 1990’s KONSTAL in Poland built several 750mm gauge Ldp-45 50 hp locomotives that were bas ed on the German JUNG Pz45 design the last of which were built for Polish Collieries in 1987. These locomotives were charged at 200 bar with a working pressure of 40bar which powered a 4 cylinder single acting non reversing air motor that drove the two axles via a gearbox and chains. A number of these locomotives are still in use today)

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:55:34 +0000

The problem is that “efficency” for stationary applications should not be measured in terms of weight, but of power input vs. power returned.
Mass is naturally not a factor when dealing with alternative energy, since we’re talking about stationary power-generation, such as for homes; for example, a house can easily have a battery that weighs 1000 kg, to store solar/wind power etc., and at 40 watt-hours/kg, this would store 40 kilowatt-hours. Indeed, several of such batters could double as the house’s foundation.

Another factor is cost, which also would need to be factored in; and so a low-cost, high-efficiency battery would be important while low-mass would be irrelevant.

By: fargrave

fargrave — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 15:46:12 +0000

What if you combined a gravity battery with the flywheel? You could use solar or wind to create the initial energy for the gravity battery. The stored energy of the gravity battery would be used to spin up the flywheel which would produce the energy you need at the time. The gravity battery would be your backup for the flywheel and would only be used if and when the flywheel needed to be maintained or started.

http://www.gravitybattery.info/

Just thinking…

By: sedacca

sedacca — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:20:41 +0000

I remember seeing a half megawatt flywheel well embedded in a concrete pit at Falcon Testing Laboratories in Loughborough near Leicester, some ten years ago.

I don’t know if it was still operational then – it was certainly not used for the very high prospective fault currents that we needed to test the circuit breakers used for electrical distribution switchgear.

I suspect they would have dumped the current to earth as heat through massive resistor banks. I somehow doubt that they would have been able to use batteries to store the energy.

Before that pre-2000, I went to an all-electric ship conference where some navy bods were talking about the possibility using flywheel storage instead of batteries, but I don’t know if this ever came to fruition.

By: chris

chris — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:05:36 +0000

Radiatidon said: “jbigdog said: “Flywheel technology seems like it would be a great way to enhance solar. Imagine a home with a big, buried flywheel out back with a solar panel hooked up to it. Then you don’t run into down time issues on a cloudy day, or at night. Wind works, too. Can anyone think of a reason that wouldn’t work?”

To my mind, cost and maintenance issues are the only factors.
First you would want multiple flywheels (about the size of a standard auto wheel, give or take). This way you have a redundant system should any fail, so you don’t end up with zero power. Also smaller flywheels lose kinetic energy faster than a larger one, that way should they ever get loose, the smaller ones would cause less damage than say a massive car-sized one. Not to mention that it is easier to move and replace any parts on say a 150-pound metal wheel than a one-ton plus metal wheel. You have to keep in mind though, the more parts to a system, the higher the maintenance and the more components that can and will fail.
Next you would want the system stored in a somewhat climate controlled area. This ensures a longer life span for the various components (rust and dirt cause friction which decreases your system’s efficiency). A hardened concrete structure would be best with a positive pressure system (filtered air blown into the structure so any dust/dirt is blown out when someone enters). Sort-of like those old bomb shelters they built during the 1950’s thru 1960’s. That way if there was a mount failure, and the safety brake (a marriage between both a friction brake and a magnetic braking system) failed to slow/stop the flywheel it would just rebound (hopefully) within the enclosure (each flywheel in its own room to decrease chances of it damaging the other systems).
The system would need to be designed so that your power usage will never cause the flywheels to drop below a certain RPM. The initial cost in energy to start the wheels moving from a dead stop is over three times what is needed to keep them spinning.
Without sitting down and doing some serious math, I’m not sure of the size required for a solar array to power the system. I do know that a well can use a 12-volt pump that runs continuously filling a gravity reservoir (water tower). That way when you use water, the pressure is not created by the pump but by the weight of the water in the reservoir and gravity pulling it downward. This system uses a small array and is cheap to replace when the motor wears out, and not to mention that the power to run it is free.
Living on a ranch, we incorporate two systems for our water usage, the low voltage system for daily use by animals and people, and both a 120 and 240-volt system for irrigating pasture and vegetable/fruit gardens. Though I have slowly been converting the crops into a low volume watering system and might be able to convert that well into a multiple low-voltage pump system. The system(s) only need to be designed by the GPM one may use on a peak day. Free sunlight and wind power is cheaper than corporate generated electricity any day of the week, as long as you perform preventive maintenance religiously.
Not a bad thought though.”

not saying change the floating sides to help on turning, but couldnt you take the air intake from driving car or plane and use water inside the device to spin? yes it would weigh a little bit more than metal but would be cheap and easier to replace.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 13:07:44 +0000

Hehe this sure is interesting. In the tablet/phone game “Blockheads”, you can craft flywheels which acts as energy storage units. I thought it was kinda silly at first, like why didn’t they use something more conventional like a battery, until I read this article.

Cool stuff.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 07:20:11 +0000

It’s not simply stagnancy.
Large corporations purchase rights to new technologies that threaten their profits. They then shelf the technology and continue business as usual. It is frequently more profitable — or safer — for them to keep the technology shelved indefinitely rather than putting it to use in creating a new product or improving an existing product. The technological advancement of our societies is being tremendously stunted by corporations and military organizations who hide new technology from the public.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 19:46:28 +0000

I think its possible to put permanent magnets on the peripheral and make a stator housing around it so you can save the kinetic energy and still constantly generating electricity even powering itself if it starts to slow down.

Caveat Emptor: Anyone who *doesn’t* believe in perpetual motion is quite possibly insane, since he can’t point to single solitary instance of anything standing still.