Design of Flywheel for Improved Energy Storage using Computer Aided Analysis

Abstract

Today, most of the research efforts are being spent on improving energy storage capability of flywheels to deliver high power at transfer times, lasting longer than conventional battery powered technologies. Mainly, the performance of a flywheel can be attributed to three factors, i.e., material strength, geometry (cross-section) and rotational speed. While material strength directly determines kinetic energy level that could be produced safely combined (coupled) with rotor speed, this study solely focuses on exploring the effects of flywheel geometry on its energy storage/deliver capability per unit mass, further defined as Specific Energy. In this project I’m finding the maximum angular velocity that a flywheel can have. For this the maximum stress is equated to the yield stress. A c++ program is made to solve the maximum velocity as this involves a lot of calculations. Proposed computer aided analysis and optimization procedure results show that smart design of flywheel geometry could both have a significant effect on the Specific Energy performance and reduce the operational loads exerted on the shaft/bearings due to reduced mass at high rotational speeds. This paper specifically studies the most common five different geometries (i.e., straight/concave or convex shaped 2D)