Introduction

A flywheel is a large disc with a certain mass and dimension depending on the purpose that
rotates freely and stores kinetic energy. The flywheel is essentially a mechanical battery as it
stores the energy and then discharges. A flywheel with greater mass and dimensions will
have bigger power storage.
An example of a flywheel is attached to the crankshaft in a car engine which stores the
energy of the firing pistons and then discharges to allow for a constant smooth power output.
The use of the fly wheel cuts down on the vibrations of the engine. A simpler use of a
flywheel is in a toy car where a large flywheel is connected to the driven wheels and when
the car is pushed forward the flywheel stores the initial acceleration and then uses this
energy to propel the car after it is released. Another example of the use of a flywheel is in
uninterrupted power supply systems where the flywheel is used instead of a battery.
Advantages of using the fly wheel in this situation would cut down on maintenance and have
less impact on the environment as it is made of harmless materials. The flywheel does have
disadvantages as it can be very expensive and when it overloads it can shatter
The main objective of this experiment is to find the relationship between time and
displacement.
Theory
Considering the forces acting on the falling mass (M) and Newtons second law of motion,

MgT =Ma

1.

For the flywheel the tension, T provides an acceleration torque for the flywheel,
2.

Where

Tr=I

1
I = Mf R2
2

I is the polar moment of inertia for the fly wheel and is the angular acceleration.
Assuming that the string does not stretch then
3.
Substitute equations 2 and 3 into 1 to obtain:

Mg

Ia
=Ma
2
r

a= r

a=
4.

1+

I
M r2

Assuming the acceleration a is constant from release, time taken can be predicted for a
specific fall s. Now using an equation of motion and rearranging it when u=0.

1
s=ut + a t 2
2
1
s= a t 2
2

5.

Now the equation is rearranged for

t2 =

2s
a

t 2 we can sub in equation 4 to derive an equation t.

6.

Apparatus

Figure 1
All the dimensions in figure 1 are in mm

t2 =

2s
I
(1+
)
2
g
Mr

In this experiment a flywheel with diameter 300mm and thickness of 74mm was used. And a
weight of 1N was attached to the shaft of dimensions 113mm length and 36mm diameter.
The wall at the back of the flywheel had lines spaced at intervals of 0.2m so that readings
could be taken at each. A stopwatch was also used in this experiment to take the time taken
for the mass to fall.
Procedure
The mass of 1N attached to the shaft and flywheel was aligned to the 0.1 m marking
on the wall this was difficult since the weight wasnt close to the wall so this could
have caused inaccurate readings.
It was then dropped and allowed to accelerate from 0 m to 0.2m and the readings
from 4 stopwatches were taken.
This was repeated for each interval of 0.2m up to 8m
Results
Displacement
(m)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8

Results (s)
0
7.40
11.04
12.87
15.25

0
7.57
11.12
12.94
15.34

0
7.47
10.94
12.84
15.18

Mean of
results
0
7.45
11.00
12.89
15.21

0
7.34
10.90
12.91
15.06

Uncertaintie
s (s)
0
0.575
0.055
0.025
0.070

Table 1

Table one shows the results from the experiment the uncertainties where
calculated by,
Random uncertainty =
Displaceme
nt (m)
Results for

t2

maximum readingminimum reading

number of readings

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

(s)

Table 2

Table 2 shows the theoretical results for the flywheel. They were calculated using
the method below
2

t =

2s
I
(1+
)
g
M r2
0.46

2 ( 0.2 )

9.81
1+