I can imagine how such Magnetic Flywheels could take the place of batteries onboard diesel submarines.
Unless, of course, the enemy sub has sensitive sensors capable of detecting rapidly rotating electromagnetic fields through several kilometers of seawater.
Quote Tuckerfan
… use a drive system which simply pumps hydraulic fluid into motors …
lots of farm equipment use hydraulic motors.One for each wheel.
The big 4 wheel drive tractors use them.
The chemical spray rigs use them
So do Combines.
AFAIK the hydraulic drive system wasn’t used for cars because it was too inefficient at highway speeds.
Probably act like giant gyroscopes to help keep the ISS on station.
I should have mentioned the other way to cancel precession of gyroscopes: use a pair of gyroscopes spinning in opposite directions. Each flywheel experiences precession so there is a lot of stress on the bearings, but the precession of one gyroscope cancels that of the other so there is no net force. The flywheel system developed for the ISS works this way.
In fact it’s the only way to do it in space. If you just had a single flywheel, when you spin it up the rest of the space station starts to spin in the opposite direction (conservation of angular momentum). It’s a nice way of changing the space station’s attitude and almost all satellites carry “momentum wheels” for this purpose, but for energy storage you want to be able to spin it up or down without affecting attitude.
Sorry, in the first sentence of my above post, please substitute “flywheel” for “gyroscope.” The word “gyroscope” usually refers to a wheel mounted on freely moving gimbals and used to measure orientation/attitude.
You think I’m “silly” for being “paranoid”?
Is this the same Tuckerfan I helped out that had a browser hijack problem? 
The only thing I will comment on is ceramic turbines. They can do some great things with keeping the TIT high, and getting upwards of 2600F or so and getting that efficiency really up there. I think temperature stratification across the larger diameter blades is a most serious issue, which is not seen as much in small ceramic turbochargers. Losing a blade tip due to uneven or too large of a heat transfer/temperature gradient tends to be catastrophic for the engine.
Well, I’m 6’4" and a hairy guy. I can see why a pretty woman might be just a bit shy about her identity on something like the World Wide Web!!! I might not be really as nice as I act…
Come on Tuck… You are sharper than that…
Old A&P one liner: If you can feel an turbine vibrating, it is too late — run !!!
Yes, it is, and because I respect you and your intellect, I toned down my initial reaction to your comment since your statement
**tells me that if I had ever met you in your professional capacity (which I haven’t, I can assure you, I’ve not dealt with any engineers of your caliber) it wouldn’t be too difficult for me to track you down. I dare say, that there’s probably only a handful of folks in the world who could match your profile as you’ve posted it on these boards. And some of those comments you’ve made give me an idea as to why you’re so protective of your privacy. That doesn’t mean that I have to be happy with your answer. (Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be bugging you every time I get a crazy idea. I’m not that kind of guy. I was going to offer you an “exchange of hostages” with me offering all my personal data first [including my bloodtype], through a third party of your choosing before you sent me the report, but I didn’t offer it because I figured you wouldn’t go for that.)
In some of the materials I have on the Tesla turbine where they discuss turbine cars, one of the people who worked on Chrysler’s turbine cars states that the problem with getting the efficiency up had to do with the tempertaure gradient, and that since jet engines tended to operate at high altitudes where the air was cooler, they could run better than a ground based turbine. I thought that it might be possible for a ceramic turbine to have better efficiency numbers based on that information (since a ceramic turbine could theoretically have a higher inlet temperature than a metal turbine).
**
No kidding. I’ve seen machinery operating at just a few thousand RPM decide to shred itself, I’d hate to see what something operating at 40,000 RPM could do if it decided to shred itself.
Oh, and I found this piece on Boeing’s fuel cell research interesting and it seems to answer the OP.
Oh trust me, there’s no way Anth could ever be interested in me.
I’m absolutely positive that GusNSpot already knows that. 
Hence the requirement for scatter shields in drag racing to help protect the driver from an angry flywheel and clutch. But now I’m curious, these are operating at less than 10,000 RPM and you see the occasional failure, though it seems it’s not as common as it once was. However, in F1 where rotating speeds are approaching 20,000 RPM, you never hear of a ballistic flywheel/clutch pack. The sizes of the assemblies are drastically different, with the drag racing being much larger diameter. Now, I realize a scatter shield probably isn’t a realistic option for objects flying off of a 40,000 RPM rotating mass, so my question is this; what is the minimum size (diameter or otherwise) for a turbine engine to be most efficient? It would seem to me that the smaller turbines would have a much less chance of failure. Is that a logical conclusion, or would uneven thermal events, as mentioned by Anthracite still be an issue for holding together a small turbine? I am less than knowledgeable in their operation, so I am here awaiting my education.
Privacy isn’t a two-state device. To exist in an online community one must make certain sacrifices to absolute privacy such that people in the community can get an idea of “how” one is, rather than “who” one is. And it’s a series of judgement calls that sometimes are on the mark, sometimes off.
I’m sorry that I’ve disappointed you. I’m not going to discuss this further with anyone on this particular Board, and certainly not in this Forum. If you want to share your speculations with me about my life and “track(ing) me down”, e-mail me instead.
In the attempt to keep the remainder of this on-topic: I wrote a paper in school once about creep in crystalline ceramic materials, which did a little looking into experimental ceramic blades for motive and stationary gas turbine engines. If I could find that one, I might post some pics to blades used in experiments and heat flux profiles. Nozzle design is a key factor in the success of the heat flux of the blades, and some people found that they could have much better reliability if they could dynamically adjust nozzle diameter and nozzle pitch on the blades as a function of turbine load. However, doing this on a scale greater than a few hundred kW is difficult, and I know of no automotive/motive turbines where this might reliably work. Of course, it has been some time since I last looked into it.
This isn’t the place for this discussion. If someone wants to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their on-line privacy of if they want to publish extensive details about themselves (addresses or phone numbers excepted), that’s entirely their business and we on the SDMB respect that choice without reservation.
Carry on.
Getting back to some of the drawbacks to turbines, just ask Jay Leno, who has already been mentioned as owning a custom motorcycle powered by a surplus helicopter turbine.
Two problems with the bike, fun as it is:
A- it has very little “off the line” power. It has some incredible high-rpm power, but leaving the stoplight takes some practice since the thing has maybe 15 or 20 HP down low.
And B- and this is the kicker- it continues to accellerate for a few seconds after you lift the throttle. The bike runs some odd electric clutch or disconnect, so you can essentially “put it in neutral”- though the engine continues to scream for a second or two- otherwise you’d back off for a corner and the thing would continue to pull with some 250 HP 'til it might be a bit too late.
I recall the Chrysler version had a difficulty or two with it as well, and between it and the fuel mileage, “daily drivability” was hurt enough to help can the project.
I’d like to add some possible improvements ( if I haven’t been anticipated already):
To the gassifier turbine, add an alternator/motor. Stomping the gas at idle will make the motor spin up the turboshaft faster than it can spool up natually, and at speed the alternator can convert the excess kinetic energy into electricity.
Also, in addition to recuperators/regenerators recycling the exhaust heat, also preheat the fuel for the same reason.
The acceleration lag and lack of low-end power is why I think a gas turbine electric hybrid would be the best setup.