Engineers showcase prototype flywheel hybrid for Jaguar XF
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A group of UK engineers has showcased the first prototype flywheel hybrid system to be included in a Jaguar XF as part of a Technology Strategy Board-funded project.
Flywheel hybrids are thought to improve efficiency by reducing the number of energy conversions on board a vehicle. The system, which was showcased at the Millbrook Low Carbon Vehicle event, is claimed to provide up to 82PS (60kW) of recovered energy and is predicted to demonstrate fuel economy gains of 20 per cent.
Dick Elsy, chief executive of Torotrak, believes that flywheel hybrids are well suited for high-performance vehicles. ‘If you want a vehicle that is fairly quick, then the system is absolutely perfect. It gives all the credentials of a hybrid, saving fuel and energy, but it also gives the potential for a performance boost.’
Most hybrid systems convert kinetic energy into electricity for storage in a battery. However, the flywheel hybrid uses continuously variable transmission (CVT) to transfer energy directly into a compact, high-speed flywheel during braking. When the driver reapplies the accelerator, the CVT transfers the energy back to the wheels.
‘The beauty of this system is its commercial strength,’ said Elsy. ‘The indications so far are that we’re targeting half the cost of an equivalent electric hybrid system. So there is real commercial logic behind it; we wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. This is a mechanical engineer’s solution to the electric hybrid world, which is going to be a lot cheaper.’
The consortium, which includes Jaguar Land Rover, Prodrive, Ricardo, Xtrac, Flybrid Systems, Ford and Torotrak, has just finished an extensive programme of rig testing and will be conducting track testing in the coming months. By the end of the project, it hopes to have demonstrated the viability of flywheel hybrids for large-scale production.
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Readers' comments (22)
Steve | 20 Sep 2010 3:16 pm
The flywheel's gyroscopic effect could make the handling interesting
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Simon Bedford | 20 Sep 2010 3:22 pm
Good to see a diferant angle on hybrid technology. If you are storing energy in a flywheel, the heavier the flywheel the more energy you can store but equally the more weight you have to add to the weight of the car, How are Jag getting round this.
Simon Bedford
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Rupert Ell | 20 Sep 2010 3:23 pm
Funnily enough this is something I thought about several years ago before anyone worried too much about efficiency. In my mind it was purely for performance enhancement with a possible stability enhancement by having the flywheel in the horizontal plane. I think I was inspired by what was possibly called a gyrocycle that the police rode in an old comic I read.
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Hugh Falconer | 20 Sep 2010 3:36 pm
I think there was a bus built several years ago that used this technology, possibly in Switzerland. The two main variables are weight and speed of the flywheel, one would assume that it would be more efficient to utilise a low mass high speed flywheel, new technology should make this very interesting.
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Oli smith | 20 Sep 2010 3:52 pm
What about the safety aspects of a chunk of dense material spinning at high rpm in the event of a failure or accident. Am guessing for weight conservation the flywheels are going to be small but at ultra high speed, probably in the region of 100k rpm. The bearings are going to have to be pretty special!!
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J | 20 Sep 2010 4:10 pm
I don't know if this story made to Europe, but several years ago (in the mid 90s) a professor in the States claimed to have developed a flywheel for automotive use. His design involved several prorietary composites to overcome rpm and balance issues coupled with what's now commonly referred to a frictionless (in name only) bearings. He was extrememly secretive, and I only saw one story on it. However, he claimed to have been able to overcome everything including the gyroscopic effect pointed out earlier and the losses encountered due to vibrational effects from normal road travel. Bottom line, if this guy could (at least claim in the lab) to do it in the 90s, the fine folks over at Jaguar R&D could probably do viably today. Koodos to them.
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J | 20 Sep 2010 4:15 pm
As an aside note, I ran a team that attempted to fabricate a terrain energy recovery system for my university's solar race vehicle. We selected flywheel technology coupled to the shock system. It ended in tears. Mathematically we could not get past Carnot and the idea that we'd expend more energy powering the vehicle directly with the added weight of the flywheel than we'd expect to recover from the road.
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John Prendergast | 20 Sep 2010 4:48 pm
Kers systems were in F1 Racing cars last year. They provd a useful power boost and apparently were reliable. I am interested that Jaguar are teamed up wioth Torotrak which implies a mechanical system rather than an electrical one.
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Martin | 20 Sep 2010 5:33 pm
Many years ago NRDC (I think) sponsored an inertia-flywheel system GYROREACTA for buses and trams. Unfortunately they left out a power of 10 in their calculations. This resulted in either too little power storage or an impracticably massive flywheel.
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Anonymous | 20 Sep 2010 7:06 pm
I recall some years ago a shunting engine being powered by a 1/2 ton flywheel that took a minute or two to spin up to speed via an electric motor and that gave about 1/2 hour of useful work without the cost of overhead wires or batteries. The imagination runs riot at the thought of 1/2 ton of spinning steel in a Jag.
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