Randall <tr3driver@comcast.net> wrote:
> Randall, a lightweight flywheel?
Sure. This is supposed to be a sports car after all, where performance is
more important than a smooth idle. Extra weight means it takes longer to
accelerate, and flywheels have to accelerated five times over ...
> The flywheel works by being heavy and
> creating lots of angular momentum to keep the engine running smoothly.
Since the angular momentum is a function of the distance from the center of
rotation, the rim area of the flywheel generates neary all of the angular
momentum. Lightening the flysheel by cutting away some material near the center
would have only a mintmal effect on the total angular momentum of the flyeheel,
but would reduce the weight just as much as if it were taken from the rim. Sort
of like a spoked flywheel as seen on steam engines.
> The design is bad because a direct shear force is applied by design to
> stress a joint held only by friction.
Again with the steam engines. Most railroad steam locomotives had steel tires
"pressed" on the drive wheels. (actually, they were heat shrunk on). Those
tires had to transmit the entire pulling force of the engine to the rail. Those
monsters generated many thousands of horsepower at speed.
> Failure of the joint has the
> potential to be catastophic because a slip could break teeth
Check out the new British Cars Forum:
http://www.team.net/the-local/tiki-view_forum.php?forumId=8
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