Talk:Flywheel

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What is the flywheel made out of will you please tell me Because I have to do a report on it. So if you can send more information on the flywheel.

There is no one "flywheel material". A flywheel's inertia depends on both the mass of the matrial used to create it, and the distance of each piece of material from the centre of rotation. So, for say a backup power generation application (where the flywheel stores kinetic energy which can later on be used to generate electrical energy) a design using a heavy material with the mass concentrated far away from the centre is preferable.

However, by moving the mass away from the centre, the tensile strength needed to hold the material in place (and stop the wheel from ripping itself apart) increases. Note that in the animated GIF currently on the page most of the mass is concentrated in the flat rim on the edge of the wheel. Additionally the wheel has most of the material in between the 'spokes' removed, which lightens the wheel by removing mass where it is least effective (i.e. closer in to the centre )

--202.159.206.45 09:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC) Why do we call a flywheel, a flywheel?--202.159.204.26 15:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please Help!

Can anyone explain The Flywheel Theory to me in its simplest terms? I am really trying to understand the basic idea behind it so that I can compare it to being a sales rep. Any explanations offered would be greatly appreciated Thanks.

A flywheel requires some impetus to get it going, the same applies to a sales rep.Gregorydavid 00:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A flywheel in its simplest form is essentially a mechanical device that stores rotational kinetic energy when it gets it, and releases it when it is required.For example in a simpe 1 cylinder engine, the crank shaft rotates 180 degrees when the piston moves down (caused by the fuel ignition), during which the flywheel stores some of the energy. In order for the piston to move back up,the energy which was stored in the flywheel is now used.

[edit] Sandpit

I cut this error from article. Gregorydavid 00:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

i dont know what a flying wheel is . sorry people

[edit] Disambig

I have removed the link to pitch in the following sentence:

"...A vehicle with a vertical-axis flywheel would experience a lateral momentum when passing the top of a hill or the bottom of a valley ([[roll]] momentum in response to a [[pitch]] change).."

This is to reduce links to disambiguation pages. Hopefully one of you wise people who know which pitch it is referring to can either let me know which it is, or correct the link to the appropriate pitch! =) Marc 09:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overlapping Image

The white flywheel image overlaps some of the text of the preceding paragraph for me. If I weren't going to bed right now I'd fix it. 202.10.86.59 15:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leonardo Flywheel

The Leonardo flywheel is more interesting than the former caption told, so i changed the wording. As the balls fall down from lower centripetal force, the I of flywheel structure decreases as r^2, so that the rotation rate decreases much more slowly than in a rigid design, as sqrt(E/r^2) instead of sqrt(E) where E is the remaining energy in the flywheel.