One approach to the safety of a faster spinning flywheel is to utilize a collision detection system.

After extensive testing of its kinetic flywheel technology, Volvo has announced that the system reservations travel agents can boost fuel economy by 25 percent. The company is now looking at integrating the Flywheel KERS system into its production line.
Volvo's Flywheel KERS is fitted to the rear axle. During deceleration, the braking action causes the flywheel to spin at up to 60,000 rpm. Meanwhile, the front-mounted engine shuts off. The energy stored in the spinning flywheel can then be applied via a special transmission toward acceleration or used to power the car once it reaches cruising speed.
During road testing with a Volvo S60 flywheel test car, Volvo found that when partnered reservations travel agents with a four-cylinder engine, the flywheel technology offers up to a 25 percent reduction in fuel consumption versus a comparably performing turbo six-cylinder. It says that the system can also augment the engine with an 80 hp boost, giving it acceleration comparable to a six-cylinder – 0-62 mph (100 km/h) in as quick as 5.5 seconds.
"The flywheel's stored energy is sufficient to power the car for short periods. This has a major impact on fuel consumption," explained Derek Crabb, Vice President Powertrain Engineering at Volvo Car Group. "Our calculations indicate that it will be possible to turn off the combustion engine about half the time when driving according to the official New European Driving Cycle."
While the Flywheel KERS system has some clear potential, it's able to store energy only for a finite amount of time while it continues spinning. As such, it's best for driving conditions where there are frequent starts reservations travel agents and stops. reservations travel agents Like some hybrids and electric vehicles, Volvo's Flywheel-equipped vehicles will get the better fuel economy in the city.
"We are the first manufacturer that has applied flywheel technology to the rear axle of a car fitted with a combustion engine driving the front wheels. The next step after completing these successful tests is to evaluate how the technology can be implemented in our upcoming car models," said Crabb.
Upon graduating college with a poli sci degree, Chris toiled in the political world for several years. Realizing he was better off making cynical comments from afar than actually getting involved in all that mess, he turned away from matters reservations travel agents of government and news to cover the things that really matter: outdoor recreation, cool cars, technology, wild gadgets and all forms of other toys. He's happily following the wisdom of his father who told him that if you find something you love to do, it won't really be work. All articles by C.C. Weiss
The idea of a flywheel for storing kinetic energy on the rear axel is an interesting new departure from Volvo which they reckon reduces fuel consumption by 25%. Great for urban driving where there's lots of stopping and starting or for undulating terrain making this the ideal car for San Francisco and Monaghan
I suppose that this concept is another function that GPS can be adapted to. Knowing when the vehicle is going to reach its destination, the GPS could ensure that all the stored energy is used up beforehand so that it does not go to waste while the car is parked.
I think it could be used in addition to the regenerative breaks on hybrids and electric cars. The flywheel could be attached to a generator and produce electricity when needed reservations travel agents and/or charge the batteries?
No magic here but nice implementation. Since it was tested in a 4-cylinder car how about comparing it to a 4 cylinder car rather than a six i.e., what are the fuel savings then? Is it approximately reservations travel agents equivalent to a turbo without the fuel losses associated with higher reservations travel agents RPM and fully depressed accelerator? What about the possibility of pairing it with a diesel where RPM are lower by design? Since it is reliant on recovered stopping forces what is the ratio of benefit to weight reservations travel agents of vehicle in a standard driving cycle? Is there an optimal braking pressure, reservations travel agents such as mashing the brakes and letting the ABS take over, or will feathering the brakes spin the KERS up to full speed? If the vehicle is equipped with handling assistance, will single wheel braking also activate the flywheel?
Why would anyone think that putting a flywheel energy recovery system on a car that already has an energy recovery system is a good idea? Especially when the the electric car is already too expensive.
Slowburn, I think the issue is more complexity, than cost, as KERS is able to recover a greater percent of braking losses (because of the ability to store more energy in a smaller time frame than chemical battery storage)
The carry on from this is that the range is increased reservations travel agents by one of these units, you no longer need some of the chemical batteries capacity, therefore you are able to reduce the cost and weight of the batteries.
Part of the problem with the capital reservations travel agents cost of electric cars is the batteries are often an upfront cost, when they probably should be an ongoing cost, like fuel and engine servicing in a conventional car.
The Renault Zoe in the UK is using the strategy of selling you the car, but leasing you the batteries, creating a cost structure that makes much more sense when you try to compare equivalent reservations travel agents conventional car costs.
Nothing was said of the probably cost. Basically, it is a good idea but would it be competitive with a hybrid electric car. I would say that the mass of the flywheel should reservations travel agents be increased by a factor of about 10 so that it could be used on city buses which presently get only about 6 mpg.
An industrial scale flywheel energy recovery system would be good, especially if they used 2 counter rotating wheels on a vertical axis so that they would gyro-stabilize against rollovers without reservations travel agents throwing in steering inputs when going over hills. (Particularly reservations travel agents useful on double-decker buses.)
This is great as a hybrid substitute but EVs essentially store back to batteries for free without additional mechanical complexity. So even if it is twice as efficient as EV regen in city driving, it's probably not worth the added cost. The EV would be happier spending money on a bigger reservations travel agents battery or using C-fiber to reduce overall weight.
This will hopefully soon hit the production lines! It could be designed into a rear axle or present drive assembly for retro fitting to acceptable cars as well. Wiring modifications might be a problem, but not insurmountable. As with present hybrids or EV cars, lifting off the throttle would signal the KERS to engage and start saving up energy supplied by forward motion.
A flywheel that is charged and tapped electrically might be cost effective on a already overly expensive and under-performing EV. On a gyrostabilized reservations travel agents 2 wheeler storing energy on the gyroscope is unquestionably a good idea.
The rear end accident powerful enough to endanger the flywheel is a high energy event anyway making the additional risk trivial even if it was a steel flywheel. Also unlike a steel when a carbon reservations travel agents fiber flywheel comes apart the fiber bits do not individually carry enough energy to harm anyone and there is no way the entire flywheel reservations travel agents will come out intact. The first touch of the vacuum container wall will sever a fiber and the flywheel will very rapidly unravel into a soft pile of worthless tangled yarn.
If you increase the speed of the flywheel proportional to it's weight then you will gain the same energy output in proportion to it's mass without the added cost of bringing a heavier flywheel up to speed. That's the problem with heavier flywheels, they lose more energy in the process of bringing them up to speed.
A better understanding of the tradeoffs of a lighter flywheel can be gleaned from studying motor/generator theories and physics. If you have a chance, study lead and lag times from opposing/attracting magnetic fields.
One approach to the safety of a faster spinning flywheel is to utilize a collision detection system. The safety mechanism employed by air bag systems may signal a rapid discharge of the flywheel to protect the occupants and the flywheel itself. Part of the answer to this is to increase the field coil (exciter) output and increase the capacity reservations travel agents of the load circuit to handle the higher output and increase safety.
In Lean Management theory, it is stated that you can't improve what you can't measure. Therefore, reporting on the device's output/input/losses in terms of Kilowatt hours (KWh) @___MPH, reservations travel agents KWh equivalent when comparing to hydraulic, reservations travel agents thermal, chemical, etc... storage.
Additionally, I'm starting to see the term Energy Return reservations travel agents on Investment (EROI) used more often in Renewable reservations travel agents energy discussions which also have a stake in utilizing energy storage reservations travel agents for intermittent sources such as windmills and solar panels. The use of EROI on future discussions on flywheels, ultracapacitors, batteries, etc is something else to consider.
Weight reservations travel agents density of the flywheel doesn't effect the efficiency of energy storage. The lighter the flywheel the faster it speeds up but it slows under load faster as well. The heavier flywheel resists reservations travel agents acceleration more but resists slowing to an equal degree.
The choice of CF isn't to reduce the inertia of the flywheel. If you do the maths, it turns out that CF stores more energy for a given size of flywheel, because it allows greater RPM before its own weight tears itself apart. The energy reservations travel agents stored is proportional to the rotational moment (which is related to the weight/density reservations travel agents of the material), but I believe it goes up with the *square* of RPM.