Remember those little metal toy cars which you'd rub against the floor, wheels down, then put them back on the floor and they'd take off, aimed for the nearest wall or your big brother's sneakers? Well, a flywheel inside that toy car made all that fun possible, and without any batteries.
Flywheels have been used in automatic transmissions since they were first mass-produced (started by Oldsmobile with their Hydra-Matic Drive transmission, displayed to the public at the 1938 Chicago World's Fair and they went on-sale in 1940). (Photo - Sebastien Bourdais in the F1 season-opener in Australia).
Flywheels are mechanical energy storage devices, much as batteries are electronic energy storage devices. Rechargeable batteries allow us to put energy into the battery and then access it at a later time, when it's needed.
A flywheel is even easier to understand; basically, it's a wind-able spring which, when turned in one direction, stores energy. When the operator desires (or when an automatic mechanism of some sort calls for it), this energy can be accessed as the wound-spring unwinds. (Photo - Flywheel energy storage device being developed by Xtrac for F1 and possible street car use by Jaguar).
Some of you might remember winding the stem on your wristwatch ... same principle. As it was wound, energy was stored by a flywheel inside the watch, and it was dissipated at a steady, pre-determined rate to operate the watch's time-keeping mechanism, which was displayed by hands on the watch face.
And starting next season, Formula 1, no less, the Most Holy of Holies when it comes to motor racing (just ask them) will be allowing kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) on F1 race cars.
Transmission technology specialist Xtrac, located in Indianapolis, IN, says the flywheel KERS systems currently being developed for Formula One could be applied to road vehicles in a number of ways.
Xtrac forms part of a consortium supported by the UK government’s Technology Strategy Board, which recently announced funding of £23 million for 16 innovative low carbon vehicle development projects. (Photo - Two-time F1 World Driving Champion Fernando Alonso in his Renault).
The flywheel hybrid project will involve the design and development of a mechanical KERS system for use in a premium segment passenger car as an alternative solution to other hybrid systems and to prove its effectiveness and viability for production.
Jaguar is leading the project, which will be carried out by a consortium made up of Flybrid Systems, Ford, Prodrive, Ricardo, Torotrak and Xtrac.
F1 says on their website, "KERS technology stores kinetic energy generated under braking that would otherwise be dissipated. Williams (F1 team, used as an example) is exploring a number of energy storage options, with the Williams Hybrid Power system based on a flywheel rotating at speeds of up to 100,000-rpm that would capture this energy for later release".
100,000-rpm? Well, when F1 cars carried turbochargers, they spun at speeds estimated to be over 150,000 revolutions per minute, so fast-spinning mechanical parts are nothing new to the sport. Heck, today's F1 car engines idle at 10,000-rpm and run best in a powerband between 19,000- and 21,000-rpm. (Artwork - Flybrid System diagram of a flywheel device fitted into a typical F1 drive system).
You might have noted that the KERS F1 systems will be "wound" by the "kinetic energy generated under braking that would otherwise be dissipated". Today's gasoline/hybrid cars and trucks, and other high-mileage vehicles, such as those using hydrogen fuel cells, do much the same thing, instead storing that energy generated under braking (mostly heat) in the hybrid system's batteries.
F1 rules now call for the sport to put an emphasis on various hybrid technologies between the 2009 and 2013 seasons; by the time 2014 rolls along we might all be using other energy-saving and mileage-improving gadgets in our new cars which have been optimized for passenger car use by F1 race cars.
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