There is one thing unclear to me about the Williams Magnetically loaded composite flywheel.MLC Flywheel
I know the flywheel itself is a motor/generator..
But they did not mention the power source of it.. i think it uses another motor/generator (along with some capacitors?) attached to the engine to power it up.. correct?
I was just pondering wild thoughts:
If there was a street use MLC flywheel; it will not be limited in terms of charge (until the disk tears apart by centripetal force and hoop stress
) and there is no 6.5 second rule so imagine the potential Mass and Energy storage of this wheel.
Also unlike Formula one, street cars drive very slow or at a standstill in city traffic so there is less kinetic energy produced during each period of braking.
Also, Unlike a battery with a max voltage; Don't you need a higher voltage to spin a motor/Flywheel faster and faster? That means To add more energy into the MLC Flywheel, don't you need additional voltage everytime?
Hence is there need of some Transformer or cascade system? (analogous to the CVT gearbox)
That in the case of intermittent Low speed braking you can just gather those small amounts of energy and ramp up the voltage each time and pulse them in to spin the MLC faster. If not attempts to charge it could end up discharging it
???
