Although chemical batteries have been used extensively in spacecraft design, mechanical batteries such as flywheels offer significant weight and life benefits. Flywheel battery systems have the potential to store large amounts of energy for very little weight compared to chemical batteries and they can also be used as attitude control actuators to replace reaction wheel assemblies and control moment gyros. This dual function capability provides weight savings and an improvement in life and reliability of the total spacecraft system. Life expectancy of a flywheel is at least 10 years, during which it is expected to undergo 50,000 cycles (charge/discharge) while supplying 3 to 5 kW-h of usable energy. Two types of composite rotor construction include filament wound and polar woven architecture. Filament wound rotors are the most efficient, however, if rotor size is limited, a thin-walled filament wound rotor might not provide the required energy and therefore a shorter, thick-walled rotor is needed. Polar woven architecture offers superior radial stiffness and strength for a rotor design, which is required for the high radial stresses generated in a thick-wall rim section.
Polar woven flywheel rim design
1999
12 Seiten
Conference paper
English
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