Data Sheet

Flywheels in Action
Flywheels are usually large, heavy wheels with a
large moment of inertia. They are designed to have
a lot of weight around their outer edges. As you
learned in the experiment with the headspinning
breakdancer, the farther away an object’s mass
is located from its axis of rotation, the larger its
moment of inertia.
A flywheel receives its energy from torque applied
to it. The flywheel’s rotational speed builds up
and thus so does its stored rotational energy. The
flywheel can then release its stored energy by
transferring torque to other mechanisms as needed.
Flywheels can be used in machines to provide a
faster rotational motion than the source of the
original torque can provide on its own. The original
energy source can slowly increase the speed of the
flywheel, which will store energy and thus
build up rotational speed. The flywheel
can then release its fast rotational energy
very quickly when needed.
Flywheels can also help provide smooth,
continuous rotational energy to a
machine when the original
energy source is jerky or
intermittent.
And of course,
flywheels can be
used in gyroscopes to
balance objects and
resist certain forces
to help control the
orientation of a machine
or device.
Did you know?
The gyroscopic effect is also at
play when you tilt a bicycle when
entering a curve. Of course, if you
were to tip the bicycle to the side
when the wheels were not turning,
you would simply fall over.
A steam engine
with a large
flywheel on the
left side
CHECK IT OUT
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