Flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) are a viable alternative for power storage. With an increasing interest in green technology and energy savings, flywheel energy storage systems are receiving a renewed attention for the applications in wind farms, subway stations, and mobile cranes. Since the stored energy of a FESS is proportional to the principal mass moment of inertia times the square of the running speed, it is important to have a design that maximizes the principal inertia while running at as high speed as possible. In this paper, we present a parametric study showing that the optimum design must consider not only the structural constraints, but also the system stability and the vulnerability to disturbances. The results show that the achievable specific energy density of a FESS is strongly affected by the stability and the disturbance rejection capability of the active magnetic bearings that are supporting the flywheel rotor for noncontact operation.
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