Flysafe - driving forward flywheel energy storage technology for hybrid cars

With the push towards less polluting vehicles and the development of hybrid vehicles (combining internal combustion engines with battery power), flywheels are often used by manufacturers to meet the transient power demands of the hybrid. The ideal flywheel material for use in hybrid vehicles has a high strength and a low density – the strength to rotate at high speeds but without adding to the overall vehicle weight.

Flysafe was a research project that set out to understand the potential failure mechanisms and behaviours of high-speed flywheel systems. The project, which was supported by Innovate UK, has been a collaboration the University of Brighton, together with Imperial College London and three leading UK based high-speed flywheel energy storage technology developers – Ricardo, Torotrak and GKN.

Flysafe test rig (green metal cylinder)

The Flysafe test rig installed in the Centre for Automotive Engineering

The test environment – developed by the Flysafe project and installed at the Centre for Automotive Engineering at the University of Brighton – is believed to be the first and most advanced of its type in the world and is capable of testing flywheels spinning at up to 60,000 rev/min in a vacuum. In addition to providing for non-destructive testing, it incorporates advanced imaging and sensor technology to investigate the behaviour of flywheels when they are caused to fail at high-speed by incorporating a range of engineered defects.

The Flysafe project builds upon high-speed imaging techniques originally developed as part of the University of 

Brighton’s extensive research in visualising fuel sprays and combustion events. As such, the project has opened a new area of interdisciplinary research, combining the University’s existing optical techniques expertise with those of materials researchers at Imperial College London. 

The research carried out on the Flysafe project and the existence of the test facility at the University of Brighton, has enabled the partners in this project to propose a BSI flywheel safety standard to promote a higher level of design optimisation while retaining the full required safety level.