What does a flywheel do and how does it work?
In: Engineering
Think of a flywheel as a battery for mechanical energy (well it’s more of a capacitor).
It’s a wheel with some weight.
To “charge it up” you spin it.
To “discharge it” you make the wheel spin something.
Which means you can do a lot of useful things. Say you got something that only causes a lot spinny force for as short then no spinny force for long while ( like an engine piston). If you just attached it to a regular wheel it’s all start stop start stop, which is not comfortable.
If instead you have a heavy fly wheel going, since there’s a lot of energy in a fast spinning heavy wheel, that big force makes it spin only a tiny amount faster. So it’s smoother.
Say you got something that needs an absurd amount of force and have only a weak motor. Well you can use the weak motor to slowly accelerate the fly wheel over a long time until there’s a lot of energy in it. Then abruptly ram a gear into that wheel and transfer all of the energy at once.
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