On Monday, 24 August 2020 10:02:23 UTC+1, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 23 Aug 2020 18:23:40 -0700 (PDT), tabbypurr wrote:

All is fine until there is an accident. The flywheel dislodges and

continues like a much more energetic panjanderam, demolishing
everyone
and everything in its very long path.

Yes, though that's mostly solvable. 2 counterrotating flywheels in one
casing with a mechanism to jam them together on impact.

Er, Where does all the kinetic energy go?

- friction - heat. where else?

OK in theory you have equal
an opposite amounts so they "cancel out".

since they're geared together & balanced they have identical speed & energy storage

But two identical cars
traveling at the same speed in opposite directions into each other
end up a right mess disspiating their kinetic energy,

yep, they do what they're designed to

I think you'd get a big BANG, the desruction of the flywheels and
generation of lots of high speed shrapnel.

you get what you design it to do. If you put teeth that interlock onto the flywheels & break when engaged, breakage is what you get. If you put a friction lining between them that brakes the flywheels within the time they have to stop without exceeding their tensile strengths, then stop is what you get. Etc.

The latter might be
possible to contain, they manage it with blade failures on jet
engines.

An outer case does allow for some degree of destructive breakage. And that generally will happen even if the flywheels are stationary.


NT