Scaling Laws for Flywheel System Components

摘要

Scaling laws for the major components of a flywheel system for photovoltaic applications are derived from constraining design parameters. Point designs are then calculated for residential and 100-kW load-center energy-storage applications and compared with a subscale prototype unit now being built at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Results are presented as scaling laws for each component and as tabulated values for each point design. Changes in design are indicated for each component where indicated by effects of scaling. An energy budget is included as an appendix. The results show that rotors and motor-generators scale in much the same way as stress-limited components, while magnetic bearings have a different behavior dominated by magnetic-pressure considerations. For sizes larger than residential, permanent magnets in the bearings and motor-generator should be replaced by electromagnets. (ERA citation 05:010175)