21 Jan
2009
21 Jan
'09
2:52 p.m.
On 21 Jan 2009 at 22:00, John Honniball wrote:
Guy Sotomayor wrote:
I think that an extreme example that I can think of was the magnet
power supply on the NIMROD synchrotron in the UK during the 1960s.
Huge flywheel spun up from mains power and then suddently discharged
into an alternator as the beam came 'round.
I tried to google images of it, but came up empty.
Cheers,
Chuck
I just recall a friend who worked at KSC during
Apollo where NASA had
something like a 2-4 ton flywheel to be power the critical launch
systems in the event of a power failure (to give time for the backup
generators to kick in).
I saw one of these when my father took me to his workplace,
Paxman Diesels in Colchester, in the 1970s. He explained that
it was for an airport, to keep the landing lights on during a
power failure. The flywheel was turned by an electric motor,
and stored enough energy to keep the lights on just long
enough to start the diesel engine.