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On determining the optimal shape, speed, and size of metal flywheel rotors with maximum kinetic energy

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Abstract

Flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) are devices that are used in short duration grid-scale energy storage applications such as frequency regulation and fault protection. The energy storage component of the FESS is a flywheel rotor, which can store mechanical energy as the inertia of a rotating disk. This article explores the interdependence of key rotor design parameters, i.e., shape, operating speed, rotor radius, standby losses, and choice of material, and their influence on the energy storage characteristics of the FESS. Two commercially manufactured metal flywheels with distinct energy storage characteristics are used as case studies to examine the potential benefit of using shape optimization in combination with operating speed, size, and material selection for rotor design. A sequential hybrid optimization strategy that combines a global genetic algorithm with a gradient-based local method is used to solve the rotor shape optimization problem. The choice of an optimal combination of operating speed and rotor radius, together with shape optimization, is demonstrated to provide 21–46% improvements in the energy capacity of two existing commercial FESS designs. Results show that self discharge losses in the rotor can be reduced by designing optimally shaped rotors with large radii operating at low speeds. It is advantageous, on an “energy-per-cost of material” basis, to use steel as the rotor material for optimally shaped flywheels with large radii operated at low speeds. Conversely, aluminium is a better choice of material for flywheels with smaller radii operated at high speeds.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Compute Canada (www.computecanada.ca) and Westgrid (www.westgrid.ca) for support and access to high-performance computing resources.

Funding

The authors acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Energy Storage Technology (NEST) Network for financial assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Systems Design Laboratory, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Vaishnavi Kale & Marc Secanell

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Mia Thomas

Authors
  1. Vaishnavi Kale
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  2. Mia Thomas
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  3. Marc Secanell
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marc Secanell.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Seonho Cho

Replication of results

The optimization results presented in the article have been generated using an in-house software which consists of a linear elasticity numerical model of the flywheel developed in OpenFCST (www.openfcst.org) using the deal.II finite element libraries (www.dealii.org), a script-based mesh generated using the open source meshing tool Gmsh (Geuzaine and Remacle 2009), and optimization algorithms from the DAKOTA optimization toolbox (Adams et al. 2009). All equations and input parameters used during the simulation have been provided in the manuscript. Furthermore, this optimization framework will be made available at the OpenFCST project site (www.openfcst.org) and GitHub project site (https://github.com/OpenFCST) as part of the next OpenFCST software release. Until a new release is available, interested readers might request access to the software by contacting the corresponding author.

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Kale, V., Thomas, M. & Secanell, M. On determining the optimal shape, speed, and size of metal flywheel rotors with maximum kinetic energy. Struct Multidisc Optim 64, 1481–1499 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-021-02935-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-021-02935-x

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