The British Railways experimented with Flywheel-electric locomotive for non-electrified tracks and with Overhead pantograph and thord rail contact shoe, it was tried out on the southern region of British Rail during the 1950s-1960s, however it was unfortunatley scrapped in the 1970s..
Those of us who worked in stamping plants in the automotive industry are familiar with flywheels on top of the mechanical presses. They certainly have their utility. I think of them as a "capacitor" for kinetic energy.
I used to work in a stamping plant with big 1200 ton presses. One day when I came in for my shift there was a big hole in the wall. Turned out the huge flywheel up top broke loose and hit the ground at speed. I heard the shaft had a hair line crack in it that eventually completely broke. It left a big dent in the concrete floor and proceeded to barrel through everything in it's way including the wall of the building only coming to a stop in a culvert on the other side of the parking lot it rolled right through. Luckily no one got hurt. But yeah, lots of energy stored up in a big flywheel like that.
Flywheels have characteristics akin to a inductance like a coil. Capacitors have characteristics more akin to a spring. If a force/voltage is applied to an flywheel/inductance it initially resists movement/current and slowly starts turning/conducting. Once it's going it can produce enormous force/voltage to keep turning/current flowing. A flywheel/inductance stores energy in an dynamic way that reqires constant operation. A spring/capacitor initially does not resist force/voltage and slowly builds up more and more resistance until no further energy can be stored. A spring/capacitor can store potential energy in a static way that does not require that mass/electrons move. A flywheel/inductance behaves inertialy, as opposed to a spring/capacitor behaving in an elastic way.
The modern alternative to flywheels I've seen in use is trams and buses powered by supercapacitor banks. They have a very similar operation where the vehicle recharges at every stop, but it's most likely more reliable since there are no moving parts required in the storage of the electricity. I've seen them in Spain in Seville where the trams have retractable booms to recharge at different stops.
Thats probably a much more efficient method of storing the energy too. But I have to question if its better than just using a trolley bus or tram. If it has to keep charging at regular intervals it must stick to a predetermined route its not really able to move more freely than a tram or trolley bus anyway. Sure, it doesn't have to have the overhead wires like a trolley bus but the gyro or capacitor bus still needs large amounts of electric infrastructure for charging at stops anyway and the extra cost of the bus its self having to have a means of storing energy probably offsets any extra cost of the wires. So then the advantage to the stored energy bus is no unsightly cables but then again the trolley bus or tram doesnt risk running out of power if there is something delaying it from reaching the next stop, nor are there as many things to cause breakdowns.
Supercapacitors are also not yet at the point where they can store as much energy as a flywheel, which already can't store a significant amount of energy. This isn't an inherent limitation of supercaps, just that our manufacturing ability needs to improve before they become practical for vehicle energy storage. At present they are usually coupled with batteries to allow short bursts of large current (charging or discharging), which can be fed into or drawn from the batteries at a lower rate. But the ultimate goal is to improve the energy capacity of supercaps to get rid of the batteries and have a 100% supercapacitor solution because there are huge benefits in doing so.
All responses within this Post are quite relevant and with the advent of current batteries for electric vehicles, a charging method would certainly lengthen the amount of time a vehicle was able to be in service. That said, I'm wondering whether any manufacturers have seriously considered an electrical dynamo. I won't go into detail unless asked, but surely this could be a better solution?
I remember Adam Savage from Mythbusters doing an experiment with flywheels. He said it was one of the only times he was truly terrified of an experiment. It is incredible the potential energy a flywheel can store up.
With theese flaywheel electric busses it would be harmless, since the flywheel only poweres a generator that limits power pretty much. But a direct mechanical transmission would be an entire different thing. Since flywheels tend to have "infinete" torque when slowed down fast, dropping the clutch would rather make the bus tip over than stalling the flywheel :D
In the UK, there's a rail vehicle (class 139) that uses flywheel technology and has been running for a few years now, mainly between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town in the West Midlands
3:15 - Chapter 1 - What is a flywheel ? 5:00 - Chapter 2 - Origins of the gyrobus 7:45 - Chapter 3 - Commercial service begins 10:40 - Chapter 4 - Why it all went wrong 13:35 - Chapter 5 - The future of the flywheel
I still think that trolley cables and battery backups are nearly a perfect solution. All we need to overcome is government inertia. (two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff)
How can you crack jokes? This video is proof that ENVIRONMENTALISTS must be given complete control of the planet NOW! Otherwise in five years when all coastal cities are underwater and everyone is dying you will come running to us screaming "YOU WERE RIGHT!"
Government inertia is not the only issue here. Red tape is not just about having a stop sign in your face to get things approved to take more time, it's about justifying why the design and infrastructure project should get approved. The reality is in most places trams and trolley buses are unviable because of the reason mentionned in the video : they simply cannot be economically justified in low to medium density areas. They are also destructive projects for the areas where they are implemented. The same way a 4 way highway being built in a neighborhood is destructive to a city, destroying the surrounding structures to build suspension infrastructure for trolley cables and destroying roads to put rails in the ground takes space and is annoying for everyone who lives there. I would also be annoyed about liability if I was a local and my property now had to be used as an anchor point for hundreds of thousands of dollars of engineered cables for which I will never be able to renovate the area now that it's deemed infrastructure critical.
In flywheels..weight is basically the "batterys capacity"....so you wuouldnt want to lower the weight of the wheel....but sure the rest of vehicles weight would stil be lighter with modern materials
@@teemuleppa3347 Exactly, but... it is not only factor. With better materials we could change "shape" of flywheel to handle same speeds with more of its mass on outer side, slightly reducing mass with same "capacity". Also better materials would mean it is capable of higher speeds which increases capacity waaay more than just throwing more mass at it.
@@teemuleppa3347 The capacity is limited by the specific tensile strength not the weight. Carbon fibre stores more energy than lead, because it can be spun faster before breaking. Speed scales energy capacity quadraticly mass only linearly. Idealy you scale both.
Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon also make some of the greatest anti aircraft/tank guns that are still in use today ,and they made thousands of guns for mobile troops,Anti aircraft,ship guns for protection etc and are world known for their great quality
Fly wheel are used to store energy for UPS systems, the amount of energy you put there is insane for its little volume. They use magnetic bearings and are under vacuum.
Back in the good ole days of kinder eggs when you actually got a toy you would have to piece together by hand, one of my faves was this little mini bike, it used a small flywheel to store energy when you gave it a quick “yeet” across the floor, it also kept the bike from falling over acting as a gyro as well. I always had a slight fascination with gyros for some odd reason.
I am 75 and I remember as a 9 year old reading an article in a Mechanics Illustrated type of magazine a report of flywheel buses being used in Europe. The flywheels were paired with a small engine that continually added to the rpms. Another transmission linked the flywheel to the wheels. They even used regenerative braking to return inertia of motion back to the flywheel while braking. One detail that I recall was that at the end of the day, the flywheel continued to spin within the vacuum chamber holding it and enough rpm remained the following mornings to start the engine.
Rode in one a while ago. Used to ride this bus type to school. Most were trolleys with overhead wires. The interiors were of really high quality stainless steel grabrails, seat frames, linoleum floors. Every detail was machined cast pieces and designed beautifully. The suspension was loud because of the absence of a running diesel. Most had a backup diesel...for emergencies. MF Oerlikon engineered anti aircraft canons and paks that won WW2
fun facts: one of maschinenbaufabrik oerlikon's buildings was moved a couple dozen meters to increase the numbers of platforms of the neighbouring railway station (oerlikon, obviously). it was the largest movement of an entire building ever and honestly, an extremely swiss thing to do bc of its sheer cost, its limited use, the preservation of a random old crappy object, it breaking one more unimportant world record, the public funding and bc it served to improve the already densest public transportation grid in the world. oerlikon is also the place where those swiss guns were manufactured and sold to middle eastern terrorists for many years, maybe even decades.
Topic Suggestion: The Voice of America Transmitters: The WWII era (massive) one in Cincinnati, Ohio; then the cold war (most powerful in the world) transmitter in Greenville, North Carolina; and their land and ship based repeaters. To indicate the scale, Liberia sold off the copper in their VOA repeater in order to fund their civil war.
A few years ago I was working in a warehouse/freight terminal, there were something like 50 forklifts moving at anyone time and someone came to work one day talking about how someone was inventing a compressed air powered forklift. My initial thought was "Yeh, that'll fly like a lead balloon" (This was before Mythbusters...) but they explained that most places that use forklifts already have a place put aside for LPG gas bottles and the bottles of compressed air would be the same, all they would need was an air compressor to fill them and one person to fill the empty bottles. Each FLT would have several bottles with one kept in reserve so that if you ran out of air in the middle of something you could turn the last bottle on to finish, and go to the refill station to get new ones. Something that even LPG ones couldn't have. The article, it was in a magazine, showed that, there is a lot of waste for a company because an LPG bottle would rarely be swapped when completely empty, and any gas left in when refilling was not taken into account when the company doing the refilling was charging you. However, with compressed air, it doesn't matter if the tank is still 50% full. It just means it takes less air to fill it. We never got any though. Some were replaced with electric ones, and they were alright. The main problem was, if someone forgot to recharge it overnight and you get in the next day and see it not charged, you're boned, whereas an air powered one, it's just a matter of swapping the bottles.
I feel like an air powered forklift would be really limited in terms of endurance. It would be a lot easier to swap out sure, but the run time per air tank would probably be measured in minutes.
I can remember a fad in the 90's where there were a few companies trying to market things that ran on compressed air tanks. They all failed as far as I know. And with good reason, compressed air is one of the most inefficient forms of stored energy. You lose a lot of energy compressing it and it loses a lot converting it into movement again too.
What the swiss wanted to do with the Gyrobus concept was to *implement a complemetary* electric public transport system for the trolleybus, *NOT* to replace it.
I remember a Popular Mechanics article (I think) from the 1970s about flywheel-powered cars that proposed using fiberglass for the wheel. This made the wheel much lighter and allowed it to spin faster (maybe 100,000 RPM.) Since energy storage is proportional to RPM squared (I think) the amount of energy stored went up dramatically while making the whole thing lighter. With modern carbon-fiber materials, it could store even more energy. The problem with this was that if something broke, the energy could be released all at once, causing a massive explosion. (This is true no matter how energy is stored. Gasoline and lithium batteries burn also.) Anyway, I thought it was an interesting idea,
Interesting, but modern battery tech will do the job. Here in Bergen, Norway a new extended trolley bus line was opened last year. Crossing bridges, tunnels and some other areas where lines are unpractical, an EV-car sized battery provides energy. Battery range is around 12 km, this will also help if there is a fault or maintenance work on parts of the line. The battery is recharged when connected, no need for extended changing stops. Many of the other city buses are battery powered, but this line is quiet long and includes climbing up some steep hills. Then the part trolley - part battery system works realy well.
Modern battery requires a lot of weird, rare and/or toxic elements that can be complicated to both obtain and to get rid of or recycle. This might become problematic if we want to make everything electric. A system using a simple spinning disc would be cheaper, easier to mass-produce and wouldn't produce toxic waste. Even if batteries are in may ways superior, this could still be a very useful alternative.
@@michaldvorak1 Possible, for some applications. But the gyro is not very efficient. Really efficient spinning systems for energy storage relies on extremely high-revving, lightweight gyros, magnetic bearings, and vacuum chambers. Such systems are expensive and fragile, not usable in a vehicle driving on bumpy roads. And batteries are getting better, cheaper and use less rare materials. Old car batteries are recovered, repaired, reused as stationary units (power banks) and in the end, 80-90 percent of the materials are recycled. Here in Norway, 90 percent of all new cars are EV (and some hybrids), and several recycling plants are being built. Rules for handlíng e-waste are very strict. Illegal dumping or export of waste is a criminal offence and will be punished accordingly.
8 yrs ago, I worked with a large, famous company developing exactly this. The difference being that a gyro was retrofitted to a standard bus. Smaller lighter but spinning much faster.
"Why needs like 12 cards?" Well, as an American school bus driver, I need a CDL of at least class B (I have class A), with Passenger school bus and Air brakes endorsements (I have all endorsements except hazamat), _then_ you need an S card, which proves you're legally allowed to drive a school bus, _then_ you need a physical card, which proves you passed a DOT physical, _then_ you need a "long form," which has your entire medical history, _then_ you need a certificate of completion, which proves you know what child abuse is and how to report it. I also have a debit card, insurance card, GIANT bonus card, Autozone card, SSN card, and I.D. card for work, and my parents' credit cards (for grocery shopping). And yes, carrying all that paper work make it look like there's a huge lump in my leg.🤣
Your medical history, credit cards, debit cards, all with your parents credit cards and your SSN card. Damn dude you must be really confident you won't lose that wallet/have it taken from you because you're basically handing them your identity on a platter and leaving yourself very little way to resolve an issue like such. Please at least take your SSN out of your wallet, that's just stupid
Wow. I carry around my drivers licence, bank card, credit card (for old times sake) and library card, tucked into my phone. One for driving/photo ID, two for money, one for books.
Years ago, my dad told me about a bus that used a flywheel in the floor to help with braking and then to assist getting the bus going again. I think he said it was Italian. I don't know if he might have been talking about this one, but in any case thank you for making this video!
I'm not sure why, but I didn't exactly expect the "gyroscopic effect" to make it difficult to turn the buses, though. I could understand how the axis of the flywheel would fight against tipping, whether side to side or front to rear and vice versa, but to resist rotation? That's an interesting, if unintended effect. Thanks, Simon. Looks like I'll be dusting off my model gyroscope and finding something else to examine and test (read "play") about. ;o)
From memory when I read about it a while back, the issue was that if you turned a corner in the direction of rotation the bus would turn a bit too readily, but if you turned against the rotation it would be a struggle. I guess because you're adding to, or subtracting from, the rotational energy of the flywheel.
@@Berkeloid0 Well... I may have to work at it a bit more... BUT from what I could observe in this morning's "screwing around"... My little gyroscope has an interesting "force induction" thing going on. Now, I've got some REALLY awesome lubrication around the house, and more than my share of intricate ways of getting the stuff into tight places reliably... SO I threw the best I've got at the little thing so there would be just a marginal amount MORE friction between the whole outer frame and the "cup" it sits in, than there would be between the frame and wheel "bearings" (kid's toy, so "joke")... I can't say it's nothing to do with friction, BUT as the little wheel spun... over time, the frame accelerated revolutions the same direction as the wheel... and when I very slightly tilted it, the frame revolved in the same direction as the precession (wobble?)... SO at least "theoretically" there is an induced motion, probably something based on your explanation... Also worth considering... Simon DID mention some considerable about bearings for the flywheels breaking down among the issues with these things. I'm thinking that if the bearings are put under the kind of stress that they break down or "warp" out of round, there's probably enough rotational energy in that thing to make driving "adventurous" at the best of operational times... AND it WAS the single heaviest part of the entire vehicle, if we think about it. Thanks for the contribution... I'll be playing (studying?) more, of course. Now, my brain's getting into "runaway territory"... haha ;o)
if the flywheel is mounted with the axis side-to-side, it will resist any turning of the vehicle. Worst idea ever! Same issue if the axis is front to back. If the flywheel is mounted with the axis vertical(the way I would do it), it would put strain on the bearings every time the vehicle changes pitch. As in going from uphill to downhill. This would also cause the vehicle to resist swaying when turning corners. The other thing to do would be to allow the flywheel to pivot in any direction freely. This removes gyroscopic force from the equation when the vehicle has to maneuver, but such a mounting system would add a lot of complexity and cost to the system. One more advantage is that it would take a lot of stress off the bearings, allowing them to have a much longer service life.
@@surferdude4487 Um... With regard to the "axis side to side"... i'm thinking a horizontal axis from right to left, through the middle (ish) of the bes... and the wheel basically "rolling" forward or revers to the vehicle's travel... Fine either way. I'm just trying to get the "graphic solution"... That's actually NOT the "worst idea ever". In point of fact, it sounds a lot (to me) like the two gyroscopic effects endeared to every MOTORCYCLE on the road today.. and pretty much, ever. I ride one of these machines, regularly... and even meditate at 90 mph on a basis of several times a week. Oh yes, I can feel the effort to compensate, but it's certainly not the worst idea ever (of any kind). That's all.
I think flywheels can have a future for buses that only travel short distances such as within a city or small area. In such a case the flywheel would not need to be *quite* as heavy. Additionally batteries no matter what type (which includes mechanical batteries like flywheels) do eventually need fixing or replacing as they age, at least flywheels arnen't made with litium which is expensive and enviromentaly problematic to replace. You could also have a small backup electric motor (or combustion engine). In case the flywheel looses to much energy due to for example a traffic jam or other unexpected stop.
No car has a flywheel of the nature used in the vehicles mentioned in this video. Cars use flywheels as a method of energy transfer from a motor. Not as energy storage....
@@matthewyabsley no, it works exactly like the flywheels discussed earlier in the video. They are used in the car as a means of storing energy for use later and as a means of smoothing out energy delivery which was mentioned earlier in the video and is not dissimilar to the use in the pedal operated machine shown in the video. The combustion engine produces power in a staccato fassion not a constant application of torque like an EV so the energy is stored in the flywheel which acts like a capacitor smoothing out the power delivery and also providing a bit of reserve power when needed. The storage effect is how you have power when there isn't currently combustion hapening, same way the wheel keeps spinning when the potter's foot isnt on the downstroke. You can even see the stored power effect when someone launches a car. You build up the revs, storing energy in the spinning crankshaft and flywheel and then when you let the clutch engage that stored energy is released. Sure, you are still adding energy to the system but the stored energy in the flywheel means you have more power available than if you just had the power being generated in that given power stroke available to you.
@@matthewyabsley To back up the other two commenters on this one (so far),.. I feel it NEEDS to be pointed out that an up-grade to the over-all torque output of literally EVERY internal combustion engine in existence is a heavier flywheel... You CAN do more for higher energy/power output of engines, of course, including a heavier crankshaft. Anyone who rides a cruiser for more than a year should understand this concept as one of admittedly MANY reasons Harleys and Indians are notoriously heavy motorcycles. The main purpose of the output is the shear torque you can generate for coming off the line, and that's part of why cruisers tend to be longer and lower set than most other types of motorcycles, to help stabilize them and prevent flip-overs and unwanted wheelies. ;o)
@@matthewyabsley Sorry dude but I have never heard of a car that does NOT have a flywheel. Even F1 cars, before KERS had them. They were very small, but they were there.
@@danielpope6498 The flywheel absolutely does not work in the same way as that of the bus in this video. The flywheel doesn't act as a storage device in a combustion engine it does. You're confusing rotational inertia with energy conservation. The flywheel damps pulses of energy and damps vibrations via imbalance through the rev range. It also serves as the friction surface for the clutch and allows a starter system (usually a motor) in traditional manual gearbox equipped vehicles.
If this came out or if I knew about this 2 years ago ! I would have done a college project on this ! Simon is such a great example of how to make a presentation , and entertaining. Such clear words and good pace across different sections! Love it
Damn, the Swiss were _way_ ahead of the times with this one. I'd really like to see this kind of public transportation get revisited with more modern engineering techniques. This is an entirely viable and very innovative way to work around at least some of the ongoing economic issues involved in today's fossil fuel crisis.
This system would be better too until we can upgrade from Lithium-Ion to something less explosive, less damaging to mine and also not as finite a resource. Definitely greener with a flywheel system.
@@dragonsword7370 Flywheels are much more explosive than lithium ion batteries if they fail. If you store energy densely, as for example to fit enough of it into a vehicle, there is always some kind of danger from the energy being released in a deadly manner if the vessel containing it fails. Fortunately it happens very rarely. Flywheel and centrifuge explosions are scary! They entail a ring of heavy shrapnel flying at high speed containing all the energy stored. But they are preventable by checking the material and operating at safe rotation speed.
Manchester now have a small fleet of electric battery buses running on the 43 route to the airport. I suspect this is what we will mostly get in future and "clever and ingenious" transport solutions will just remain in laboratories. The buses in Manchester don't have any recharging places en-route, they rely on a depot charger. Essentially it's a toss-up between having fewer buses and installing expensive charging points on the routes, or more buses so some can be in depot charging to take over from a bus coming in for charging.
Battery electric buses are in successful commercial use. Glasgow and Paisley bought a huge number ahead of the COP26 climate talks last year, and they’re still happily trundling around.
Sounds like Telsa needs to make a Hybrid vehicle using his modern technology with the Gyrobus technology. The electric motor could be used to spin the Gyro up and then go on a stand by mode to save energy until the Gyro needs to be spun again. If the Gyro could be fitted with magnetos it could also produce electric energy to recharge the batteries! This could be the most energy efficient vehicle ever made!
There was an effort in the 1990s to implement flywheel-powered cars. They used banks of small vacuum canisters, each containing two counter-rotating flywheels whose kinetic energy was converted to electricity to power the car. Each canister was in effect a battery. I actually saw a prototype at the LA Auto Show one year and read road reports of the prototype, but it disappeared without a trace as far as I know. There was an experimental flywheel-powered bus in San Francisco in the 1970's that used a lightweight, high-speed flywheel, but it disappeared, too, as far as I know.
Man! I've thought about gyro-batteries for a long time and really love the concept! There are a few company start-ups trying to make them work! they spun at 100K RPM or so and rested on magnetic bearing in a near-vacuum! In my mind, I could never overcome the load part of the equation! I think they had all of the containment issues solved for those RPMs in case of catastrophic disintegration. But while they're a great idea, not now! Maybe some denser, more stable material might come along. Who knows! it's still a good idea! Especially for short commutes!
If you look into green energy storing startups a Oregon or Wash. state company was pursuing large flywheel energy storage to capture excess solar and wind power in this units that were steel flywheels weighing several tons. In a vacuum as well and the potential capture and output attached to an electric generator was very promising. Same tech ideas in that documentary special included using water reservoirs to fill up from the power, then be poured back through to transfer that power back into AC current.
Might be perfect for airports, because distances are short, turning circles don't need to be small and everything is flat. Maybe flywheels would be great for pushback vehicles. They need to be heavy anyways, so you might at least use this fact to accommodate flywheels.
Big flywheels are damned terrifying. They are a really interesting concept, not only the ones used for energy storage but also those used in other places such as smoothing out the motion of the pistons in an internal combustion engine. But still, big flywheels, are damned terrifying, especially the ones used for energy storage.
a kinetic batterys kinda makes more economic sense then an electro chemical battery. because less resources and less supply chain. and with a good manufacturing center would be possbily easier to make. cheaper is dependent on the weight material.
Simon, this is your channel(s) at it's best...bringing something interesting to my attention that I was previously completely unaware of. Good stuff, thanks.
If this is on the table, then you should have a writer cover the Chrysler Turbine Car, a 1960's experiment that still has some futuristic charm to it even today. Ran in anything remotely flammable, including a PR stunt in Latin America that had tequila dumped into the fuel tank, and it ran on it.
If you liked this video check out the Flywheel videos by Tom Stanton. He is experimenting with KERS bicycles, and Flywheel transportation. Very interesting videos.
There is a reason that travel times in the US are in HOURS, not miles, much less those wimpy clicks. I grew up in Europe and got used to good transport. The real reason US transit fails is they are not a System, just a whole bunch of lines. They do not shift between rush hour and off times to conform to actual need. Even here in San Diego they have only half a system in the South Bay. Busses connect to the tram on the west, but the is no I-805 terminus. There are no express transit center to transit center connections, even for most rush hour this
dont know if this could be an good idea but a bus thats is hybrid like an prius but unlike a prius that use fuels the bus could run on something safe and clean to charge the battery
It's like if an ancient Roman created an internal combustion engine. The technology was there, but the infrastructure was not, so it lived and died unsupported.
Oh I was just referring to how British Columbia would only join the dominion if they had a railroad put in. I wasn’t referring to anything US. Maybe a bad choice of words
The gyyroscopic issue could be solved by spinning two wheels in opposite directions, but I can imagine that this would bring additional mechanical problems.
Would make a great alternative to these 48v mild hybrid cars. Nice boost when accelerating and I dare say lighter and with much less precious metals than a battery + motor
Another use of flywheels from that era and later was as uninterruptible power supplies for critical infrastructure and buildings. Instead of large battery banks, chargers and inverters the system used an electric motor, a huge flywheel and a generator. Allowing ample time to fire up a big diesel generator.
Still in existence today. Well, 20 years ago I saw a couple of systems at the NAB show in Las Vegas that were designed to act as a UPS for an entire building. As you said, enough of a buffer for the big gennie to fire up and stabilize!
@@michiganengineer8621 a previous boss of mine spent most of his career in rectifier manufacturing companies. The first place he worked at had some of these systems in storage still, fantastic pieces of engineering. Extremely good quality bearings.
Correct, they used it as a KERS device, iirc it was then also used by the aborted Nissan LMP1 project, and is used in the modern London buses Williams applied tech are pretty interesting, although now independent I believe, they also simply and cheaply massively increased efficiency of chillers at shops
@@jordanclark4635 the system never made it onto a raced F1 car but was tested and used elsewhere within and out of motorsport, weighed too much to justify in the pinnacle of racing
We had many many electric bus systems until GM, Firstone, and ESSO conspired to rip them out and go to diesel. The gyo bus had a flywheel case filled with hydrogen? Holy Hindenburg. No smoking ! How were these heated in Sweden?
nissan had a fly wheel in its front engine protoype race car that was size of a suitcase that ran so fast it had to be in a vacume to stop itself being ripped apart
San Francisco looked at reviving this idea in the 1970s as a way of extending the range of their trolleybuses beyond the overhead wiring. That seems to have ended up in the "too difficult" file.
San Francisco also is not a very flat city. If the bus has to change it's pitch when driving on and of slopes the gyro will try to tip the bus over to the side and would require the bus to slow down. Cities in flat places like Florida might be a more suitable location to operate gyrobusses if ramps are avoided.
im sorry to inform you that the flywheel hybrid system developed by WilliamsF1 was never actually implimented on a car that raced, a brilliant idea that never made it past testing
Tbh I'm kinda interested in riding on a Flywheel-powered Bus or new Gyrobus, wouldnt be against the idea of Buses for now on using Flywheels for power.
If the mechanism had a pure vacuum rather than hydrogen, there wouldn't be any friction on the wheel proper, so it would be feasible to employ a smaller flywheel to produce a similar output. The only issue is it would have to be constructed in a true vacuum (space) as well.
You are forgetting that the density of H2 is 1/8th that of O2, and about 1/10th that of air (which is mostly N2). So, running in an H2 filled cavity at stp made a fairly efficient environment. Hydrogen embrittlement is a potential problem, as is the concern of an explosive mixture forming due to O2 leaking in. The simple answer to that would be to keep the case slightly above atm. pressure. The case contained the flywheel and motor (at least on the Sentinel rail application of this), so there is a spark concern within it.
The price calculation for the electrity costs are completly wrong becase no way eletricty cost 32 cents/kw.h in 1953, that is twice the modern price and there has been about 1000% inflaction in the period...
I'v always carried my fat trifold wallet in my front right pocket, so never a bum/ fat wallet problem here. Ps. Me 45+ years ago, "Must touch big spinny thing", "Must touch glowy red thing", "Must jump off balcony", "Must pore gasoline on fire". It's amazing I'm not disfigured and still in one piece !
I don't see why hybrid electric buses aren't a thing. Take Frankfurt. The H-bahn uses overhead lines for power. Now, imagine a bus with a battery which can charge and drive on these lines yet can run off the lines using a battery system. You've got a vehicle which needs no fuel, can reach anywhere in the city and costs little to install or run as it uses preexisting infrastructure.
I'm sure with all the technologies that a new flywheel vehicle would be a lot better, and could be made of far lighter materials. Plus steel on steel railways with this tech would be far more efficient.
So a flywheel used in this manner is a battery. I wonder what the economics of storing solar and wind power in a flywheel vs a battery for overnight use. Batteries are environmentally unfriendly to make and dispose of. How damaging is a flywheel for the same KwH stored?
Generally a lot less so - just metal and some plastics for the flywheel. On the downside, flywheels tend to "leak" a lot more energy than batteries per hour.
Have not watched this video, but vehicle may be powered by the energy stored in the flywheel but the true source of the energy is the apparatus that transfers energy to the flywheel - one must always consider the energy source. What is the efficiency of the (flywheel charge process + storage loss + flywheel-to-drive process); just may be a cute experiment and a wasteful process energy wise.
It is the conservation of angular energy which is responsible for the storage of energy. Angular momentum is not conserved. Never has been, we have just been making a stupid mistake.
Still remember as a Swiss teenager having a test in physics where we should calculate the best position/location for the gyro so it would have minimal impact on the road holding of the stupid bus. Test that decided me not to study science😜
