AFS Trinity Power Corp. (Seattle, WA) announced a new flywheel technology and the award of a patent for the technology from the US Patent Office. The technology is expected to be used in second-generation flywheel/diesel hybrid trucks and buses as well as in flywheel/solar-energy momentum (EMW) systems in satellites and spacecraft.
The new technology, called the active rotating containment (ARC) flywheel, is a flywheel within a flywheel. The flywheel stores energy until needed and then releases it on demand. It uses a slower, heavier rotating outer flywheel to contain a much faster, lighter, inner flywheel. The result is more power per pound, more efficient energy transfer and a neutral gyroscopic effect, which will allow vehicular operation without having to use counter-rotating pairs of separate flywheel systems. It also makes it possible to eliminate heavier, less reliable lead-acid batteries and, if desired, to disconnect from the power grid entirely in distributed generation, stationary alternative energy applications.
AFS Trinity Power Chairman and CEO Edward Furia stated, "All other flywheel systems utilize containments that act as dead weight in the system. Our ARC flywheel system's outer rim is designed not only to contain the inner flywheel, it is also a working energy-storage component itself. The result will be a dramatic increase in specific energy for the whole system. In other words, you can expect the total energy stored per pound of total system weight to be dramatically higher in the AFS Trinity ARC flywheel."
