High-Speed Kinetic Energy Storage System Development and ANSYS Analysis of Hybrid Multi-Layered Rotor Structure

Flywheel energy storage systems (FESSs) can reach much higher speeds with the development of technology. This is possible with the development of composite materials. In this context, a study is being carried out to increase the performance of the FESS, which is especially used in leading fields, such as electric power grids, the military, aviation, space and automotive. In this study, a flywheel design and analysis with a hybrid (multi-layered) rotor structure are carried out for situations, where the cost and weight are desired to be kept low despite high-speed requirements. The performance values of solid steel, solid titanium, and solid carbon composite flywheels are compared with flywheels made of different thicknesses of carbon composite on steel and different thicknesses of carbon composite materials on titanium. This study reveals that wrapping carbon composite material around metal in varying thicknesses led to an increase of approximately 10–46% in the maximum rotational velocity of the flywheel. Consequently, despite a 33–42% reduction in system mass and constant system volume, the stored energy was enhanced by 10–23%. It was determined that the energy density of the carbon-layered FESS increased by 100% for the steel core and by 65% for the titanium core.