All You Need To Know About FLYWHEEL — Carengineered.com
Automobiles we use in our daily life are a quite sophisticated marvelous masterpiece of Engineering AutoTech.
This sophisticated masterpiece aims in the sweetest comfort and robust performance simultaneously utilizing every single drop of fuel for the optimized performance.
Hence, the Flywheel is one such masterpiece of engineering embedded with simple technical concept and design and yet unmatched assistance it has to offer to the automobile.
What is Flywheel??
A flywheel is a mechanical component that is circular in shape usually made up of cast iron that functions to store the kinetic energy ( rotational Motion ) and then uses it for the further purpose to gain some momentum.
The flywheel can also be understood as a storage device analog to electrical conductors like accumulators.
How does flywheel work??
Flywheels are quite heavy and mounted on the crankshaft. The inertial of the flywheels help to counter the ripple fluctuations from the engine and so as to provide a smooth and steady-state of power to the transmission effectively.
The Kinetic energy from rotational motion highly depends upon the weight distribution around the peripheral axis or at the outer rim and also on the rotational speed of the flywheel.
If the rotational speed of the flywheel is doubled then the Kinetic energy gets quadrupled.
For a maximum output from the flywheel either the mss needs to be very high so as to increase inertial due to mass or the rotational speed.
But if we use a flywheel with high mass and high rotational speed then the centrifugal forces acting would shatter the flywheel into fragments.
This is why lightweight materials are used as they spin at very high speeds and are thus stronger.
Modern Flywheels are also made up of ceramics, carbon-fiber composites, and various crystalline materials
Functions of a conventional flywheel are as follows:-
From newton’s law of physics, an object tends to be in the same state until and unless some external force is applied to change its motion.
The same happens with the Flywheels as they experience the friction that is quite low in magnitude even though they spin in low friction bearings but still has an effect and secondly the air drag that further assists.
Advantages of Flywheels
- Flywheels are relatively simple tech. that has a number of advantages over rechargeable batteries.
- Low initial costs.
- Low maintenance cost.
- Long life.
- Environment friendly.
- Works in any climate.
- Very quick to get up speed.
Disadvantages of Flywheel
It adds up a quite considerable weigh to the automobile.
Acts as a gyroscope due to high rotational speed that may potentially affect the handling and stability, for example in racing cars.
Due to their operations at very high speed, there is a chance of getting shattered that adds up another disadvantage to it.
Hence, flywheels serve a vital role in force manipulations and are also widely implemented in industrial applications as well.
Originally published at https://www.carengineered.com on June 25, 2020.
