Wicked_Sludge
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2007
- Messages
- 6,937
- Reaction score
- 43
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- Age
- 38
- Location
- Westport, WA
- Vehicle Year
- 1993
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 3-point-GO
- Transmission
- Manual
Me and a fellow co-worker got to BS'ing today and i was telling him about those little wind-up cars that have a heavy, gryo-powered wheel that you wind up on a special base then set them free. i remember these things would haul ass and go forever and we got to wondering if it would be possible to adapt the idea to a real car.
after some research...come to find out its far from an original idea. i guess starting back in the '50's, Switzerland toyed around with gyro-powered buses. since then the idea has been tried and modified a bunch of times. i guess nasa is still toying around with high efficiency systems...carbon fiber, magnetic bearings, spinning in a vacuum, ect. i guess there are some interruptible power supplies that are gryo powered.
so now for some numbers. some of this math is a little over my head (or maybe its just late and my contacts are bugging my eyes ) but ive converted the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline into KWh per mile (assuming a 20% efficiency of my internal combustion engine in the escort...which i hope is reasonable). at 34 mpg, im using about 0.211 KWh/mile (this seems reasonable, since the EV ranger used about 0.461 KWh/mile). so to go 50 miles, i need about 12 KWh.
i tried to find a good formula for figuring the kinetic energy of a flywheel of x weight, speed, and diameter...but i gave up and used this little calculator instead:CLICKY
its really intended for smaller flywheels i think, but it works if you convert pounds to ounces and feet to inches. it gives two output readings "disk" and "ring". at the bottom it says depending on the flywheels design, its actual KE will be somewhere between these readings. i plugged in 6400 ounces (400lbs), 60 inches (5 feet) and 10,000 RPM then averaged the two outputs to get 42 joules...or 11.6KWh.
so what do you guys think? go out in the morning and plug the car in. a small electric motor starts the flywheel in motion. after a few minutes its doing 10k and your set for 50 miles of extremely torquey very quiet driving? one major downfall i see is that parking for long periods is like parking a vehicle that has a hole in the gas tank. the longer you wait, the less "juice" you have to get home with.
after some research...come to find out its far from an original idea. i guess starting back in the '50's, Switzerland toyed around with gyro-powered buses. since then the idea has been tried and modified a bunch of times. i guess nasa is still toying around with high efficiency systems...carbon fiber, magnetic bearings, spinning in a vacuum, ect. i guess there are some interruptible power supplies that are gryo powered.
so now for some numbers. some of this math is a little over my head (or maybe its just late and my contacts are bugging my eyes ) but ive converted the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline into KWh per mile (assuming a 20% efficiency of my internal combustion engine in the escort...which i hope is reasonable). at 34 mpg, im using about 0.211 KWh/mile (this seems reasonable, since the EV ranger used about 0.461 KWh/mile). so to go 50 miles, i need about 12 KWh.
i tried to find a good formula for figuring the kinetic energy of a flywheel of x weight, speed, and diameter...but i gave up and used this little calculator instead:CLICKY
its really intended for smaller flywheels i think, but it works if you convert pounds to ounces and feet to inches. it gives two output readings "disk" and "ring". at the bottom it says depending on the flywheels design, its actual KE will be somewhere between these readings. i plugged in 6400 ounces (400lbs), 60 inches (5 feet) and 10,000 RPM then averaged the two outputs to get 42 joules...or 11.6KWh.
so what do you guys think? go out in the morning and plug the car in. a small electric motor starts the flywheel in motion. after a few minutes its doing 10k and your set for 50 miles of extremely torquey very quiet driving? one major downfall i see is that parking for long periods is like parking a vehicle that has a hole in the gas tank. the longer you wait, the less "juice" you have to get home with.