Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Flywheel |
FlywheelNoun1. Regulator consisting of a heavy wheel that stores kinetic energy and smoothes the operation of a reciprocating engine. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "flywheel" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1939. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mechanical Engineering | A heavy wheel whose purpose is to store kinetic energy. Source: European Union. (references) |
| A heavy wheel attached to machinery to keep the speed even. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Mining | A heavy wheel used in a rotating system to reduce surges of power input or demand by storing and releasing kinetic energy as it changes its rate ofrotation. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A flywheel is a heavy rotating disk used as a repository for angular momentum. Flywheels resist changes in their rotation speed, which helps steady the rotation of the shaft when an uneven torque is exerted on it by its power source (such as a piston-based engine) or when the load placed on it is intermittent (such as a piston-based pump). Flywheels can also be used by small motors to store up energy over a long period of time and then release it over a shorter period of time, temporarily magnifying its power output for that brief period. Recently, flywheels have become the subject of extensive research as power storage devices; see flywheel energy storage.The kinetic energy stored in a rotating flywheel is
where I is the moment of inertia of the mass about the center of rotation and ω is the angular velocity in radian units. A flywheel is more effective when its inertia is larger, as when its mass is located farther from the center of rotation either due to a more massive rim or due to a larger diameter.
The flywheel was developed by James Watt in his work on the steam engine.
See also gyroscope, momentum wheel
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Flywheel."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Rotation | Carousel, merry-go-round; Ferris wheel; top, dreidel,teetotum; gyroscope; turntable, lazy suzan; screw, whirligig, rollingstone, water wheel, windmill; wheel, pulley wheel, roulette wheel, potter's wheel, pinwheel, gear; roller; flywheel; jack; caster; centrifuge, ultracentrifuge, bench centrifuge, refrigerated centrifuge, gas centrifuge, microfuge; drill, augur, oil rig; wagon wheel, wheel, tire, tyre. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Starting a tractor by starting the flywheel, El Indio, Texas. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Boston and Maine railroad shops at Billerica, Massachusetts. Almost a ton of lead in this small pile will be used over and over again. This lead was taken out of the locomotive drives wheels (see negative 1 [i.e 54699]) and is used to give wheel flywheel. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | He stepped on the starter and the clanking flywheel turned over, the engine caught and died, and caught again |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Flywheel" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Flywheel" is used about 43 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 43 | 52,181 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "flywheel": magnetic flywheel. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "flywheel"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | volant. (various references) | |
Arabic | حذافة دولاب موازنة, الحذافة دولاب الموازنة, دولاب الموازنة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | махово колело, маховик (flyer). (various references) | |
Chinese | 飞轮. (various references) | |
Czech | setrvaèník (swing-wheel). (various references) | |
Danish | svinghjulsakkumulator, svinghjul. (various references) | |
Dutch | vliegwiel. (various references) | |
Finnish | vauhtipyörä (fly-wheel). (various references) | |
French | volant (flounce, fly, flying). (various references) | |
German | schwungrad (fly wheel). (various references) | |
Greek | σφόνδυλος αδρανείας, σφόνδυλος του κινητήρα, σφόνδυλος (fly), στρόφαλος (crank, handle), τροχόσ κανονίζων την ταχύτητα. (various references) | |
Hebrew | 'ל'ל ת ופ". (various references) | |
Hungarian | lendkerék (fly-wheel). (various references) | |
Indonesian | roda gaya. (various references) | |
Italian | volano (badminton, battledore, fly wheel, shuttle cock). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | フライス盤 (false start, flight, flight bag, flight control, flight data recorder, flight engineer, flight recorder, flight test, flight-number, fly-fishing, flying, flying start, fried chicken, fried potato, fright, fry pan, frying, frying pan, milling machine), 弾み車 , 勢車 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | フライホイール , フライホイイル , はずみぐるま. (various references) | |
Korean | 회 익. (various references) | |
Manx | queeyl chassee. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ywheelflay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | volante (flying, helm, joystick, rudder, shuttlecock, steering wheel, volant). (various references) | |
Russian | маховое колесо (fly-wheel). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | zamajac. (various references) | |
Spanish | volante (balance, balance wheel, bird, flier, flying, handbill, handlebars, handout, helm, joystick, rudder, shuttle, shuttlecock, steering-wheel, volant, wheel). (various references) | |
Swedish | svänghjul (castors). (various references) | |
Turkish | volan (flounce, frill), çark (barrel, cogwheel, handwheel, rotor, runner, wheel). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | маховик. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "flywheel": flywheels. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "flywheel" (pronounced flī"wē'l) |
| 3 | -w ē' l | cartwheel. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-f-h-l-l-w-y" | |
-3 letters: felly, welly, wheel. | |
-4 letters: eely, feel, fell, flee, flew, fley, heel, hell, weel, well, whee, whey, wyle, yell. | |
-5 letters: eel, elf, ell, ewe, eye, fee, feh, few, fey, fly, hew, hey, lee, ley, lye, wee, why, wye, yeh, yew. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-f-h-l-l-w-y" | |
+1 letter: flywheels. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
