What does a flywheel do and how does it work?
In: Engineering
A flywheel is just a wheel. Heavy wheels (relative to the application) take a lot of energy to get spinning, but once they do they really want to keep spinning. This means you can make an up front investment and then keep that mechanical energy stored in the rotation of that heavy object for some time.
The applications vAry, but usually they’re used to help balance out power fluctuations, the wheel can keep a system in motion when power cuts briefly or store up extra energy by accelerating when there is a surplus of power, or to temporarily power the whole system on their own after the initial power source cuts out.
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