I have absolutely no knowledge of electrical engineering. Question: If someone had such a flywheel, could it quickly transfer a full charge to an electric car? Would a bank of flywheels at a filling station allow EV to charge up exactly like an internal combustion vehicle? Two minutes and you’re ready to go 400 more miles?
I’m never really clear on what governs how fast electricity can be transferred from “this” to “that”.
The conductor is a major limiting factor - pull too much, melt the wires/bars.
Question: If someone had such a flywheel, could it quickly transfer a full charge to an electric car?
The added mass of the flywheel would, of course, make the entire vehicle that much heavier. It’s been tried on city busses, but that’s a much larger vehicle. The flywheel has to be pretty friction-less. Jouncing around on a typical roadway might not be something that you’d want to do.
“I’m never really clear on what governs how fast electricity can be transferred from “this” to “that”.”
Electricity always MOVES at the speed of light, more or less. But batteries have a characteristic “charge acceptance rate”. The more charge pumped into a battery, the more it heats up. Different batt types have diff charge acceptance rates. At some point, the heat produced will cause a failure; either by evaporating the electrolyte in a conventional lead-acid battery, or, by warping the plates such that they touch each other and create an internal short circuit. Whatever happens to Li-ion batts being XFC’ed (extreme fast charged) is an area I can’t comment on. But every type will have SOME limitations.
There are plenty of articles regarding “charge acceptance rate” should you wish to search.
From the Gyrobus link...
Charging a flywheel took between 30 seconds and 3 minutes; in an effort to reduce the charge time, the supply voltage was increased from 380 volts to 500 voltsGiven the relatively restricted range between charges, it is likely that several charging stops would have been required on longer routes, or in dense urban traffic. It is not clear whether vehicles that require such frequent delays would have been practical and/or suitable for modern-day service applications.
We’ve got the power...I would have thought that quick transfer of the energy would cause massive heating and breakdown of the battery.
Whatever happened to zinc air batteries?
The SOURCE of the electrical energy (be it a flywheel driving a dynamo, a steam engine driving a dynamo, a hydroelectric plant [i.e., a waterwheel driving a dynamo], a wind generator [i.e., a windmill driving a dynamo], or an atomic power plant driving a dynamo) is irrelevant.
There are TWO BOTTLENECKS, i.e., limiting factors: 1. The lines (electrical conductors) leading from the energy source to the battery - such lines will melt if too much electricity is feed through - and 2. The ability of the battery to quickly accept electrical energy (likewise: without melting).
Regards,
Heat dissipation.