Toward optimization of the woven flywheel

Avco's constant stress composite flywheel incorporates fibres in the two principal stress directions: radial and circumferential. A description of this design concept, along with two basic fabrication methods, is presented. The low cost fabrication approach which incorporates a spiral weave is evaluated for its energy storage capacity. In this evaluation, several extremes of weave design are considered. It is concluded that flywheel performance depends primarily on maximizing the hoop fibre count and determining through experimentation the optimum fibre volume fraction for the composite.