Patent Application
20210088031
The following description is provided to assist the understanding of the reader. None of the information provided or references cited is admitted to be prior art.
A flywheel designed for storing energy typically consists of a vertical-axis rotor supported by a pair of magnetic levitation (maglev) or rolling element bearings, rotated by a motor/generator with an active control system. Electrical energy sent to the motor is converted to kinetic energy by spinning the rotor. As the rotational speed of the rotor increases, it stores increasing levels of energy (charging phase); the speed decreases when energy is drawn from the system (discharging phase).
In normal operation, the rotor speed is increased as energy is fed into the motor and decreased when energy is taken out of the system. The principle is simple, the response time between charge and discharge is short, the lifetime of the device is very large, and the power handling capacity is far better than batteries. These features have led to flywheels being considered for rapid energy charge/discharge applications.
One major issue, however, is the necessity to reduce the kinetic energy rapidly in the event of malfunctions or external perturbations. The latter may consist of a seismic event, impact to the device by an external object or by an explosion, bearing seizure, motor failure, etc. In such situations, it is highly desirable that the rotor speed be reduced rapidly and the rotor brought to a safe stop.
In accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure, one embodiment relates to a method for braking high-speed flywheel rotors safely and rapidly. It consists of the placement of a stationary annular ring, the “braking” or “landing” ring that is axisymmetric with respect to the rotor axis and situated below the lower lateral surface of a rotor. The braking ring may be made of bare metal such as steel or cast iron or may be surfaced with brake lining pads bolted to the ring. This arrangement would allow for replacement of the pads when worn as is done, for example, for automotive brakes.
Another embodiment relates to a flywheel device including a sealed housing section; a rotor located in the sealed housing section; and a braking annular ring mounted to the sealed housing section below the rotor.
Yet another embodiment relates to a flywheel device including a sealed housing section; a rotor located in the sealed housing section, the rotor held in a vertical position by a magnetic system; and a braking annular ring mounted to the sealed housing section below the rotor, wherein the rotor contacts the braking annular ring when the rotor is lowered from the vertical position.
Further still another embodiment relates to a flywheel system comprising a flywheel device and a controller. The flywheel device includes a sealed housing section; a rotor located in the sealed housing section, wherein the rotor is held in a vertical position by a magnetic system; a controller coupled to the magnetic system; and a braking annular ring mounted to the sealed housing section below the rotor, where the rotor contacts the braking annular ring when the rotor is lowered from the vertical position. The controller performs operations to provide control signals to provide first power to the magnetic system to hold the rotor in the vertical position and provide second control signals to provide second power to the magnetic system to lower the rotor.
The foregoing summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. In addition to the illustrative aspects, embodiments, and features described above, further aspects, embodiments, and features will become apparent by reference to the following drawings and the detailed description.
The foregoing and other features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only several embodiments in accordance with the disclosure and are, therefore, not to be considered limiting of its scope, the disclosure will be described with additional specificity and detail through use of the accompanying drawings.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawings, and claims are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here. It will be readily understood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, and designed in a wide variety of different configurations, all of which are explicitly contemplated and make part of this disclosure.
The mechanics of how the rotor decelerates may depend upon the rotor weight, its size, speed, and the nature of the sliding surfaces. In the case where the contacting surface of the rotor is made of steel and the braking surface is also steel, the deceleration may be very rapid. In an exemplary case, a 3,000 kg rotor, 1-meter in diameter, required a landing ring contact zone of 10 mm wide to develop a braking normal pressure of less than 1 megapascal (145 pounds per square inch). This value may be well within the compressive strength of common brake lining materials or in steel-to-steel contact.
In the case of carbon fiber rotors, the first application of the braking process may result in carbonization of the polymer matrix at and near the rubbing interface. Note that this may only be true in a vacuum or non-oxidative atmosphere. The resulting carbonized material may be closely similar to the carbon/carbon composites that are used in aircraft brakes, re-entry space vehicles and rocket nozzles and are capable of withstanding temperatures well in excess of 1500 C. This means that the mechanical braking arrangement described herein may not damage or deteriorate the rotor, therefore allowing multiple braking and re-starting of the flywheel without additional servicing or repairs.
In one embodiment, the braking ring is a simple steel ring (or steel ring segments) welded to the inside of the housing (
In the aforedescribed arrangement, the rotor sliding on the landing ring may be similar to the action of a cylindrical/conical clutch or brake. The width of the landing ring may establish the contact pressure when it is subjected to the weight of the rotor (when no radial braking is employed). The magnitude of the contact pressure can be designed to be well within the frictional parameters of standard automotive and aircraft phenolic-based or carbon-carbon friction materials.
A second benefit of the mechanical braking method described above relates to rotor “touchdown”. Magnetic levitation of flywheel rotors has the advantage of contactless operation since the spinning rotor is suspended between two actively controlled electromagnets. While mechanical (rubbing) friction is eliminated, failure of the control system may result in catastrophic failure of the entire unit since the high speed and weight of the rotor will quickly destroy the maglev bearings and, perhaps, even the housing, with the potential for high speed debris release. Thus, all magnetic levitation bearing systems may incorporate a touchdown rolling contact bearing, (typically angular contact ball bearings) to effect safe deceleration of the rotor in the event of a controller or maglev bearing failure. Even so, the time taken to slow the rotor may be defined by the magnitude of the power rating of the flywheel and also the available load that is connected to the flywheel energy storage system. For example, a flywheel rated at 8 kW power and an energy storage capacity of 32 kWh will take 4 hours to dissipate all of its maximum stored energy if an 8 kW load is available at the time of the emergency. This may not always be the case. To solve this problem, an external resistive load may be necessary and available to discharge the energy; the software may switch the device first to the discharge mode and then to the external load, taking up valuable time before the emergency shut-down sequence is initiated.
A more serious deficiency relates to the problem that touchdown rolling contact bearings may have severe limitations when suddenly subjected to a spinning load, thereby restricting their use to relatively small rotors or slow spinning rotors. This may be because rolling contact touchdown bearings may have a very limited life when suddenly subjected to the full weight of a high speed rotor. For example, the life of a typical rolling contact bearing subjected to a suddenly applied weight of a 1000 kg rotor spinning at 6000 rpm may be about 16 hours. While this amount of time may be sufficient for safe shut-down, the touchdown bearing may be invariably destroyed in the process and have to be replaced before the device can be placed back into service. This procedure may be performed every time the touchdown bearing system is activated.
In addition, since bearing life may be inversely proportional to the cube of the applied load, the size (and, thereby, the weight) of the rotor may be severely restricted in this arrangement. For example, if the mass of the 1000 kg rotor in the example above is doubled, the energy stored may also be doubled. If the power rating is also doubled, the time taken to discharge the rotor from full charge may be the same (4 hours). However, the touchdown bearing life may now only be 2 hours, making this approach unfeasible. In addition, the external load may also have to be doubled, adding expense and taking up additional space.
For large and heavy rotors, therefore, it may be highly desirable to have a way to rapidly slow a rotor without the need for conventional touchdown bearings or external load resistors. Such an arrangement, as is taught here, would also allow for the safe operation of large flywheels with greater energy storage capacities which would have the potential for much lower cost (per kWh stored).
Increasing kinetic energy storage capacity may be desirable both from a cost standpoint as well as from considerations of energy storage density. The latter may be important to minimize the footprint required for a given level of energy storage desired. Both considerations may require employing larger and heavier rotors which may not be easy to accomplish due to the load limitations of touchdown bearings.
The arrangement described above for braking the rotor, however, can be used to avoid these limitations. Under normal operation, the rotor may be levitated by the maglev bearing system and spun up to full operating speed. Should the maglev bearing system fail or is inadvertently disconnected, the rotor will drop onto the braking ring and allowed to slide to a stop. In other words, the mechanical braking arrangement may have the dual purpose of acting as a sliding touchdown bearing in addition to its role in the emergency braking arrangement. In addition, the braking energy dissipated may not be dependent upon an external load or the power rating of the flywheel.
With this approach, the limitation on rotor size and weight may no longer be an issue since the braking surface area can be readily increased to accommodate the larger rotor. This claim is illustrated by a simple comparative calculation. If the diameter of a cylindrical rotor is increased by a factor of n, and assuming that the rotor axial height is fixed, the weight of the rotor has increased by a factor of n2. If the original braking ring contact width is increased by the same factor n, since the diameter of the braking ring is larger by the same factor, the braking ring area has also increased by n2 to keep the contact pressure the same. Thus, while the energy stored increases in proportion to the square of the diameter (with rotor height kept constant), the contact width may only need to be increased linearly to maintain a constant contact pressure and thereby the heat dissipation per unit area. This means that the ratio of the contact width and the diameter is constant and independent of the size (and, thereby, the weight) of the rotor. Thus, the limitations on rotor size with respect to touchdown bearing life inherent in current state-of-the-art may no longer be an issue, opening the way for safe operation of very large and heavy rotors.
In the embodiments described, repeated touchdown events are fully feasible and may not require the unit to be taken out of service or disassembled. The contact surfaces may be stable after a few operations, the wear debris is small and contained within the vacuum envelope. These factors may allow the unit to be put back into operation immediately after a touchdown event, saving downtime and repair costs currently required by existing touchdown bearing configurations. In addition, since the wearing surface geometry on the rotor is axisymmetric, rotor wear resulting from touch down events may not cause an imbalance in the rotor.
Mechanical braking results in heat generation, and in typical operations, most of the heat soaks back into the landing ring and the housing without excessive temperature increases in the rotor. It is generally desirable that the heat is dissipated away from the rotor so that its mechanical properties are not adversely affected.
Controller 605 is shown to include a processing circuit 620 and a communication interface 625, in some embodiments. Communication interface 625 may be a receiver, a transmitter, etc. In some embodiments, communication interface 625 may be or include a general input/output (GPIO) unit that enables communication between various pieces of hardware and controller 605. Controller 605 may transmit signals to flywheel device 610 through communication interface 625.
Processing circuit 620 is shown to include a processor 630 and memory 635, in some embodiments. Processing circuit 620 may be implemented as a general-purpose processor, an application specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”), one or more field programmable gate arrays (“FPGAs”), a digital-signal-processor (“DSP”), circuits containing one or more processing components, circuitry for supporting a microprocessor, a group of processing components, or other suitable electronic processing components. Processor 630 may include an ASIC, one or more FPGAs, a DSP, circuits containing one or more processing components, circuitry for supporting a microprocessor, a group of processing components, or other suitable electronic processing components. In some embodiments, processor 630 may execute computer code stored in memory 635 to facilitate the activities described herein. Memory 635 may be any volatile or non-volatile computer-readable storage medium capable of storing data or computer code relating to the activities. According to an exemplary embodiment, memory 635 may include computer code modules (e.g., executable code, object code, source code, script code, machine code, etc.) for execution by processor 630.
In some embodiments, via processor 630, controller 605 may be configured to lower rotor 615 upon obtaining an indication to stop or slow rotation of rotor 615. Controller 605 may obtain the indication from an external device. For example, controller 605 may obtain the indication from a device that monitors rotor 615 for issues that rotor 615 is experiencing, such as overheating. The signal may include a flag or setting indicating the problem. Controller 605 may identify the flag or setting and transmit a signal corresponding to the flag or setting to flywheel device 610 to stop or slow down rotation of rotor 615 accordingly. In another example, controller 605 may receive the signal from a computing device (not shown). A user may provide an input to the computing device that causes the computing device to transmit the signal to controller 605. Thus a user may control rotor 615 from a computing device.
In some embodiments, via processor 630, controller 605 may be configured to obtain the indication by determining the indication based on data that controller 605 receives from flywheel device 610. Flywheel device 610 may contain or include sensors that detect the current temperature of flywheel device 610. The sensors may be configured to transmit the detected current temperature to controller 605. Controller 605 may receive the detected current temperature and determine whether flywheel device 610 is operating in a normal state by comparing the detected current temperature to a threshold. Responsive to determining the detected current temperature exceeds or otherwise satisfies the threshold, controller 605 may determine flywheel device 610 is overheating. Consequently, controller 605 may generate and transmit a signal to flywheel device 610 that lowers rotor 615 down onto the annular ring to slow or stop rotation of rotor 615. Controller 605 may determine flywheel device 610 is operating in an error state based on any data or upon making any determination.
Advantageously, the embodiments described present an inexpensive way to brake large spinning rotors should the bearings malfunction or the device experience sudden instability. In addition, the embodiments show how safe and repeatable touchdown of the rotor is accomplished without the need for an additional rolling contact touchdown bearing and an external resistive load. The embodiments make large, high energy storage capacity flywheel systems feasible and safe without the need for restrictions on rotor mass, power ratings or external loads.
The embodiments described herein have been described with reference to drawings. The drawings illustrate certain details of specific embodiments that implement the systems, methods and programs described herein. However, describing the embodiments with drawings should not be construed as imposing on the disclosure any limitations that may be present in the drawings.
It should be noted that although the diagrams herein may show a specific order and composition of method steps, it is understood that the order of these steps may differ from what is depicted. For example, two or more steps may be performed concurrently or with partial concurrence. Also, some method steps that are performed as discrete steps may be combined, steps being performed as a combined step may be separated into discrete steps, the sequence of certain processes may be reversed or otherwise varied, and the nature or number of discrete processes may be altered or varied. The order or sequence of any element or apparatus may be varied or substituted according to alternative embodiments. Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure as defined in the appended claims. Such variations will depend on the machine-readable media and hardware systems chosen and on designer choice. It is understood that all such variations are within the scope of the disclosure. Likewise, software and web implementations of the present disclosure could be accomplished with standard programming techniques with rule based logic and other logic to accomplish the various database searching steps, correlation steps, comparison steps and decision steps.
The foregoing description of embodiments has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise form disclosed, and modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from this disclosure. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principals of the disclosure and its practical application to enable one skilled in the art to utilize the various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. Other substitutions, modifications, changes and omissions may be made in the design, operating conditions and arrangement of the embodiments without departing from the scope of the present disclosure as expressed in the appended claims.
This application is related to and claims priority under 35 U.S. § 119(e) from U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/895,941, filed Sep. 4, 2019, titled “MECHANICAL BRAKE FOR FLYWHEELS”, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62895941 | Sep 2019 | US |
