Porsche made a flux capacitor!!!11!!1

[n1zm0]

Not really but damn interesting! Regenerative too of course.

i'd rather carry one of these over a spare tire... or the female passenger can take the back seat in favour of one of these :D amazing car as well :drool:



AW7lstH1TgY


http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/porsche918rsr-9m_sm_01.jpg

Porsche's 918 RSR's performance hybrid system relies on this giant flywheel — sitting where a passenger seat should be — to capture and release energy on command. It's a real-life turbo boost button. Here's how it works.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_1_brakes.jpg

Step 1.) Hit the Brakes!

The driver mashes, feathers or otherwise stomps the middle pedal. Clever electrical stuff starts happening.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_2_motor_generator.jpg


Step 2.) Zzzzt!

Two electric motor/generators, each one dedicated to a separate front wheel, kick into reverse—or generating mode—and begin converting the car's forward motion into an electrical current.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_3_accumulator.jpg
Step 3.) The Flywheel Accumulator!

Inside that ominous nuclear-reactor dome resides a carbon-fiber flywheel, which revolves inside a stator. Because the flywheel's been loaded with magnetic material, it acts just like a electric motor/generator. When the current generated during braking reaches the flywheel, it increases the flywheel's rotation speed from an idle state of around 20,000 rpm up to a maximum of 36,000 rpm, in the process storing electrical energy as kinetic energy.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_4_boost.jpg

Step 4.) Boost!

Maybe he wants to initiate a pass, or grab some front-wheel traction to quicken his track-out, or just wants to try and preserve fuel incrementally. Whatever the reason, the driver pushes the boost button and hangs on.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_5_accumulator.jpg

The stator converts some of those high flywheel rpms back into electricity. Because energy is conserved (remember physics class) the speed of the flywheel decreases as it gives back some of the electrical energy.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/step_6_motor_generator.jpg

Step 6.) Motors! Go!

The current generated from the flywheel powers those front-wheel motor/generators for an eight-second boost of 150kW (201 hp). The system can also initiate torque vectoring, distributing torque to each of the front wheels as needed to enhance traction.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/01/porsche918rsr-5m_sm_01.jpg

Step 7.) Sayonara

Driver accelerates toward victory lane, where he'll be showered with champagne and other sundries.



http://jalopnik.com/5728504/

EDIT: this was at the Press preview for the Detroit autoshow (Jan 15-23)

[A790]

WOW!

Amazing technology!

Wonder how long till it trickles down into mainstream sports cars :P

[AaronK]

Sick lookin car! I want one for my car! hahahah

[Mitsu3000gt]

Such an amazing looking car.

[Kardon]

That is absolutely stunning. Very impressed that the flywheel can produce 8 seconds of an extra 200hp just from kinetic energy

[l/l/rX]

So this system is exactly like KERs that formula 1 cars have?

[n1zm0]

^ yeah, but this is in a 'road going' car (even though its a race car) i think the appeal factor is that its that much closer to going into production vehicles

[962 kid]

Originally posted by l/l/rX
So this system is exactly like KERs that formula 1 cars have?

There are several different KERS systems (previously) used by F1 cars. The system Porsche uses was designed by Williams Hybrid Power - their unit was only used by Williams (who are dropping it for 2011 F1 due to space issues). Mclaren and Ferrari used a motor/generator unit with batteries for storage, not a flywheel.

Check out the GT3R hybrid, it uses the same system and is pretty successful with it

[Mitsu3000gt]

They should make a car that looks like that with a real gas engine in it...maybe a nice little TT V8 or TT 3.8L flat 6. There will never be a substitute for how good gas engines sound, IMO.

[rage2]

Yea, old news for those following racing the last 2 years. :D

The F1 version of the flybrid is much more compact and efficient (much lower energy loss), because it skips the conversion process to and from electricity. Purely mechanical.

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/6734/mfkz.jpg

http://www.virgeweb.com/rage2/misc/f1kers.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3659/3333708760_410c95508c.jpg

How flywheel KERS works (from 2008):

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The current Porsche system is simply what F1 teams were using in 2009, except they replaced the batteries with flywheel. Reason for doing that is that batteries needs to be replaced every race (in F1), and shipping batteries across borders isn't exactly easy. The flywheel system is much more reliable and stable in terms of energy storage. It wasn't used in F1 because it weighed too much. Even the battery versions weighed so much (@25kg for the entire system) that teams using it (Ferrari, McLaren) lost the advantage of using ballasts to adjust for weight distribution, and were uncompetitive for most of the year, except for the power tracks.

[94boosted]

It's all fun & games until that flywheel gets even slightly off balance @ 36,000RPM like say in an accident. How much does the thing weigh?

[962 kid]

Originally posted by 94boosted
It's all fun & games until that flywheel gets even slightly off balance @ 36,000RPM like say in an accident. How much does the thing weigh?

The outer housing is more than strong enough to cope with the flywheel failing. Believe it or not, F1 teams occasionally do consider things like driver and spectator safety.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Yeah I would expect the housing could contain a failed flywheel.

[rage2]

Originally posted by 962 kid
The outer housing is more than strong enough to cope with the flywheel failing. Believe it or not, F1 teams occasionally do consider things like driver and spectator safety.
That and the whole unit has tons of sensors to detect any anomaly before failure and shuts itself down. The flywheel operate witihn a vaccuum in the housing so it's rotational speeds, acceleration/deceleration rate, etc. are very predictable, any abnormal behavior and the unit shuts down.

Pretty spiffy stuff.

[94boosted]

Originally posted by 962 kid


The outer housing is more than strong enough to cope with the flywheel failing. Believe it or not, F1 teams occasionally do consider things like driver and spectator safety.

Still curious as to how much the flywheel weighs even if it were only a few pounds at those speeds the outter housing would have to be unbelievably strong to safely contain a failure in the event all of the fail safe systems didn't work.

Very cool system though that's for sure an extra 200hp for 8 seconds :burnout:

[Tomaz]

I think this will me the next cool thing to become mainstream in the auto industry (in smaller capacity of course). Utilizing a system like this in everyday cars could help save a lot on fuel consumption when governed properly.

This could also reduce the need for higher output engines in commuter cars by giving the extra power when needed (overtaking, hill climbing, etc.). For example, you could have a little Honda fit with just enough power to get around (say 120hp just for a number) with great gas mileage, but with that little power, one would have trouble climbing certain hills, or overtaking trucks on the highway. Press the button to overtake, and you have an extra 40 hp for 20 seconds. Sounds brilliant!

[bituerbo]

The F1 mechanical system makes sense. The time from when you're braking to when you need that power is 5 seconds tops. But you come to a stop at a stoplight, 90 seconds later you need to accelerate... how much of that power remains?

I know that the flywheel is operating in a vacuum, but there still must be some mechanical drag from whatever device spins the flywheel in the first place.

And this isn't the first time that a flywheel has been used to generate extra power in a roadgoing car. I remember reading a review about some car that was being tested by a number of the automotive journalists, and they were being given a warning of "watch out for the flywheel kick" as the flywheel was used to store the energy from accelerating until the speed was sufficient to unload all of it's power without losing traction.

Found it: http://www.kitcarusa.com/?shownews=45

A twin V12 lemans car... but it sounds like the "0-200 mph" run was done on the highway...

[rage2]

Originally posted by bituerbo
The F1 mechanical system makes sense. The time from when you're braking to when you need that power is 5 seconds tops. But you come to a stop at a stoplight, 90 seconds later you need to accelerate... how much of that power remains?

I know that the flywheel is operating in a vacuum, but there still must be some mechanical drag from whatever device spins the flywheel in the first place.
I remember them explaining that there's very minimal power loss at rest, they're using near frictionless bearings. Even in F1, KERS sometimes isn't activated until the end of the lap on the front straight, so power retention is just as important.

Here's an article, good read on the Flywheel KERS system, how it works, challenges, etc. They don't talk much about the bearing system, probably because it was one of the tougher challenges they faced.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/182014/f1-kers-flybrid.html