*** ABSTRACT 9661336 Swett This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the design of an electromechanical battery for power-assist vehicle applications. Of the various candidate technologies for energy storage on board a hybrid electric vehicle, flywheels require only an evolutionary rate of progress in terms of materials science development. During Phase I, design issues associated with rotor constitution out of three types of carbon fiber will be addressed as will the design of the hub, the permanent magnet motor, and the suspension/bearings subassemblies. Phase I also includes the design of a containment housing with appropriate energy dissipation and release mechanisms in the unlikely event of rotor failure. Phase II of this effort will address the fabrication of engineering prototypes and the validation of the Phase I design with the goal of having a producible and manufacturable prototype design. Also during Phase II, the engineering feasibility of the prototype design will be demonstrated through projections in reductions of materials costs due to economies of scale as well as manufacturing costs by proper selection of processes. The target cost of the electromechanical battery system to be developed in this multi-phase research effort is $500-800 per kWh of energy. The target performance is an electromechanical battery system with an energy storage of 3 kWh, a maximum power of 88 kW, a specific energy of 50 Wh/kg, a specific power of 1.4 kW/kg and a life over 1 million cycles. Successful development of flywheels that achieve the targeted cost and performance will enable their integration as power-assist devices into hybrid electric vehicles. ***
