I am not sure that any mechanical to electrical transducer could ever produce a 100-200 Ampere current.
"Energy stored in this Flywheel is converted into Electrical energy using Cyclo-converters similar to one's used in Wind Mills." -
I don't know if they made an enormous breakthrough in the last 5 years, or are revealing that to confuse people, but I worked for a guy who consulted for BAE at Caltech, and they used spinning metal spheres as capacitors, which generated the high amperage current on discharge. That is the only engineering solution to the requirement of high current sources on-board a tiny space like that of an aircraft carrier.
"This is then converted to DC Current"
I believe there is a huge problem in this part too. This works very well for normal industrial/household applications, but has significant energy loss problems for such high amperage currents.
Can you show me a BAE document/infograph that shows how their EM catapults work?
This is the photo of the flywheel Capacitor used to store energy that is used in the EMALS.
This is another Industrial grade Flywheel Cpacitor,
Here an electric motor generator is connected to the flywheel allowing a DC voltage to be stored or recovered.
The electrical power is used to spin up the flywheel and when the power is turned off the flywheel continues to spin. To recover the power as electricity the motor generator is used to generate electricity thus slowing down the flywheel.
This model is tested for 530 kJ, 60 kW storage system and it weighs just 27 kg.
I do not have any more details to share but the physics of it is rather well known.
Hope this helps,
The Energy Blog: About Flywheels
Development of flywheels as a stand-alone energy storage unit for electrical power was made possible by advances in power electronics that allowed for the efficient voltage and frequency control of the power output regardless of the rotational rate of the flywheel. However size and resultant bearing stresses limited the speed and thus the amount of energy that could be stored. Subsequent advances, notably in carbon fiber materials and magnetic bearings allowed for higher energy densities.
Flywheels store energy proportionally to the mass of the rotor and to the square of its rotational surface speed. Therefore the best way to make it store more energy is to make it spin faster, not to make it heavier. It is important to understand that it is the surface speed that is important--not simply rpm's--so a smaller diameter flywheel, rotating much faster, can have the same energy level as a larger one, rotating slower.
Low speed metallic flywheels are used to smooth out the speed of engines, other rotating machines and in uninteruptable power supplies (UPS). The flywheel attached to the rotating shaft of a engine, moderates fluctuation in the shaft's speed by temporarily storing excess energy created during the power stroke and releasing the energy during the non-powered stroke. Low speed flywheel systems, designed for the UPS market with short spurts of power, generally have a heavy solid steel rotor and rotate at speeds less that 10,000 rpm and a mass upwards of 5,000 pounds.
The basic components of a high speed flywheel energy system are the rotor motor/generator bearing system, vacuum housing and power electronics. The rotor is the most important part of the system, as its design determines the amount of energy that can be stored.
High speed flywheels systems usually spin a lighter rotor at much higher speeds, potentially up to 100,000 rpm but generally in the 20,000 to 60,000 rpm range and a mass of 1,500 pounds or less. Because of the increased stresses at these speeds, high speed flyweel rotors are normally constructed from composite materials, such as fiberglass or carbon fibers impregnated with epoxy, wound into a thick cylinder. These materials are of lower density and higher strength than steel and provide the best combination of properties for this application.
To reduce losses in high speed systems magnetic bearings are used and the system is enclosed in a vacuum chamber to reduce aerodynamic drag. Magnetic bearings use magnetic forces to levitate the rotor and eliminate frictional losses from rolling elements and lubrication. These two features, although they reduce heat build up in the system, do not eliminated it. Unfortunately they also minimize the removal of heat from the system and some type of cooling is required.
Flywheels store energy through accelerating the rotor up to its operating speed and maintaining it at that speed by the addition of a small constant amount of energy input to overcome bearing friction and aerodynamic drag. When power is needed, the process is reversed by using the motor as a generator. It is possible to deeply discharge the flywheel without any damage to the unit because the energy is stored mechanically, not chemically. Thus nearly an infinite number of cycles, considering a 20-25 year life of the device, can be obtained.
Since the power and energy components are decoupled in flywheels these systems can be loosely classified into two categories optimized for either power or energy. Optimizing for power requires a greater emphasis on the motor/generator and power electronics, while optimizing for higher energy densities requires a larger, high speed rotor. As improved power electronics, vacuum housings, and magnetic bearings become more widespread, round-trip efficiencies of flywheel systems have improved and many current production models are in the 70% to 80% range, with some of the new designs even higher.
Pulse Power--Flywheels can be used to provide short burst of power in a variety of applications. Some include military applications, but much larger variety of applications can be found in a variety of industrial uses and engine starting in the transportation sector.
