Question |
| Asked by: |
Tim Richards |
| Subject: |
Gyroscopes as alternative for batteries? |
| Question: |
I was wondering if anybody knew who to contact about this question. It seems that I've seen the idea posed before for a gyroscope to be used as a battery/alternator. The article I read, which was some time ago described what was essentially a gyro being "spun-up" electrically to a given RPM and then maintained at that speed until energy is needed from it. At that point energy is drawn off of it in the same way as with any simple generator. |
| Date: |
11 April 2001
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
webmaster @ gyroscopes.org - 14/04/2001 09:40:51
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| | Gyroscopes used to store engery are already being used. In Sweden (Sweden?) they have large flywheels in some buses. When going down a hill the gyroscope is charged and the engery is released and flatter ground.
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| Answer: |
Lars Brejnbjerg - 12/04/2005 22:37:44
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| | Hi there
During the late 80’ties, when I was occupied with electrical vehicles, I heard that in Moskva, Russia some busses there simply had as only energy source, the conserved energy from a fly-wheel. The idea was to “load” the fly wheel when the bus stopped for taking up passengers. The busstops was fitted with an electrical “connector” to the bus which then by a build in electrical motor got the flywheel running. Calculating the energy needed to propel a 15 ton bus for a mile or two, with a flywheel weighing perhaps 200-300 kg made some interesting figures of the initial speed of a lost fly wheel hitting the ground.
Not that scientific, but may be a good story. Living in Denmark I have not picked anything about the Swedish busses.??
Lars Brejnbjerg
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| Answer: |
Victor Geere - 19/04/2005 08:50:30
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| | I had an idea of a flywheel naturally precessing in a circular path in the presence of a coil. Attached to the flywheel is a magnet that doesn't spin with the flywheel but follows it in its circular path of precession. Some of the electricity generated in the coil is used to keep the flywheel spinning. The spin of the flywheel is not subjected to the torgue required to generate electricity. The precession is used to generate electricity.
The questions that have to be answered by experiment is (1) whether more than enough electricity is generated to keep the flywheel spinning. (2) Does gravity cause precession.
The question about gravity needs to be answered so that we can know whether it can be counted as a positive external force so that the device does not run out of steam at some point, like an attempted perpetual motion engine would. I haven't posted this suggestion prior to your question because it is hypothetical at best.
Regards
Victor
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 19/04/2005 13:59:23
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| | The coil would have a braking effect upon the magnet (Lenz's law), this would slow the precession and the rotor would descend. To keep it at the same level, one would have to increase the rotor speed. That is the problem with conservation laws; one cannot get around them. Several people have patented the idea of using gyroscopes to extract energy from the Earth's rotation, and it is indeed possible. Unfortunately, the energy required to keep the rotor turning far out-weighs any energy which is 'harvested'.
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